Falling for Fall {Thankful For Project}

I absolutely love making things for my daughter and doing projects with her.  But I also love watching her craft and create on her own as well.  Now that the leaves are changing I had this urge to do some fall decorations that were handmade {mainly kid made :)}.  Kid made decorations just make me smile.  So I went online and searched for leaf templates that I could print out for free. 

 I found this one:  http://images.marthastewart.com/images/content/web/pdfs/pdf3/tvs8651_corkleafcoaster.pdf

by Martha.  

I liked this one because there were different shapes of  leaves and it also told what tree each leaf came from so it became an art and science lesson in one.  Love it when that happens! :)  You can print that template off bigger if you want, Victoria wanted small baby leaves so we kept the print size smaller.  After you print them out have your little one cut out the template pieces and then trace them as many times as they want on colored construction paper.  Victoria wanted to do so many that I did help her in the tracing of them so it went a little smoother for her. ;)

So we wouldn't forget what leaves came from what trees she went ahead and wrote the names on the back. I am thinking about doing a science project where we take these trees and sketch them out in our science journal and find out where they are commonly found.  Victoria loves things that are nature and tree related. 

After tracing a million  okay 30 or so Victoria cut them out and then wrote all the things she was thankful for this year.  She had so much to write that she actually cut out a few more leaves.  Super cute!

 We started to tape them out around her home school desk area so she could see them while she did her work but then we thought we better not put too many .....the kitty monster has been known to come in the night and tear things down off the wall.

 Flopsina guarding my daughter's art :)

 So we took the rest and Victoria stuck them up high enough on the wall so that the kitty monster can't get to them in the night.

Now whenever we walk in from being gone, we walk by and see all the things our little girl is thankful for and it makes us smile.  :)