Fall Leaves

I LOVE fall!  The temperature change, the college football, the anticipation of favorite holidays, and (when I attended college in the midwest)...the leaves and pretty colors!  

That's Big Brother (at 7 months) on a fall visit back to our college campus (that's where my husband and I met.  Yes, we're college sweethearts).  I love these types of fall scenes! 
Unfortunately though, we don't really get that classic fall look where we live now.  Sure, a few of the trees change and drop leaves.  But, it's a small few, so we don't get the pretty array of colors and due to the temperature (hello, it was 90 here this week!!), the changes don't usually happen until the end of this month or closer to Christmas! 

So, when you can't have this...

(aren't those colors so gorgeous?!  that fantastic photo was taken in the town I went to college in by my freshman year college roommate!)

then you have to make these...

Close right?!  Ok, so maybe not, but still a fun fall activity to do with the kiddos!  For this leaf project, I downloaded a free maple leaf template from first-school along with an "L is for leaf" page for them to do.  To make our fall leaves, we used the same Crayola fingerpaints and paper as we did to make our abstract pumpkin art.  

As we discovered with our pumpkins, the colors don't bleed together the same way traditional fingerpaints do.  So, we were left with some very fall-like leaves!

If you don't have the special Crayola fingerpaints and don't feel like buying any of those (we just happened to have them), then you could try making them with light corn syrup and food coloring as Alison from Oopsey Daisy shared on Ucreate with Kids.  

See?!  I think those turn out totally awesome and might just have to be our next leaf making project!  And, at least with these fun hand-painted leaves, there are no big dead piles to rake up!! :)

What's your favorite leaf activity to make with the kids?