Make a Fall Collage

The other day, my daughter and I made some Fall collages. I think that this is a fun project that can be truly fun for children of varied ages. It's a fun project that can be done in two parts.

First of all, we went outside in our yard and took a little walk, and I had my four year old pick all of the leaves that she liked the best, and some other things she thought that she might like to include in her art. 

We ended up with leaves, straw, and more in our bucket:





 (I have explained to her that her art is her own, there is no right or wrong art. When she is making something, she is the artist, and it's whatever she wants. I think giving kids creative freedom, and empowering them to use it is just so important. She used to draw and ask if it was good, or if she was doing it "right". I made sure she knows that her art is her own, and, while I would be proud of anything that she made, she was the first, and really only, person that needed to love it and think it was beautiful. I always let her know that I love it, because it's hers, but I think I've gone on a slightly unrelated tangent here..)

Anyway, after she carefully picked out what she wanted to be on her collage, we brought the bucket inside.  The beautiful thing about this project, is that you don't need much other than what you find, some paper, and some glue.  That's it.



We ended up making three different collages. She was having a lot of fun, and we had plenty of stuff. Obviously she didn't want to waste any of her carefully chosen items, so we spent a lot of time carefully gluing her items to pieces of paper.

Up to this point, I hadn't really let her do much of the handling of the glue, because I just didn't want to deal with the mess, but I figured, as a four year old who will be entering Kindergarten in a matter of months, it was really time for me to get over that. She did a pretty good job, and we had minimal mess, and the final product came out as something that she was proud of!