‘Leaf Art’ Activities for Kids — Creative Fun, Inspired by Nature

With warmer weather and plants and trees flourishing wherever we look, it got us thinking about some creative children’s activities, inspired by nature. One simple starting point is the humble leaf, which can lend itself to a surprisingly wide range of creative activities for children to enjoy. Such activities will not only draw children’s attention to nature, which is incredibly good for them, but also help young children develop new skills, stretch imaginations, and boost creativity. Today’s activity ideas are also so simple that they will be suited to children under five (under adult supervision)* as well as older children. Take a look — and have fun!

What You’ll Need

The first thing children will need is, of course, a selection of suitable leaves. To give them enough scope for a wide range of creative activities, we suggest families forage a variety of different sizes and shapes. We suggest focusing primarily on tree leaves as these are likely to be fairly robust, come in lots of different forms, and often have well-defined ‘vein’ structures. Oak leaves, sycamore, beech, hawthorn, horse chestnut, lime, sweet chestnut and silver birch would represent a nicely varied selection, for example. Download our free leaf reference sheet to help with identification.

Once children have a good selection of suitable (and safe) leaves, they will also need creative materials like paper, paints, pencils, crayons, and potentially child-safe glue. Exactly which of these will be needed will depend on the activity chosen from the options below.

Leaf Painting

One of the most straightforward activities using leaves is for children to simply paint them. The youngest will love painting one side of each leaf in a different colour — or even adorn them with patterns like spots, zigzags, hearts, and stripes. Once the paint is dry, the leaves can be used in a variety of different ways. For example, they could be glued into an attractive design on a sheet of paper/card and displayed in a frame, made into a garland for the wall, bunched together to form an attractive hand-held fan, glued to a circle of paper or card to form an attractive crown, or glued to an upturned stick or tree sprig to represent a colourful tree. These are just a few ways they can be used once painted and, indeed, coming up with ideas is all part of the fun and creativity for children!

Leaf Collages

Collages made from leaves can also be very easy for children to accomplish; they just need a base card or paper, child-safe glue, some leaves and perhaps some flowers too. Ideally, leaves should be flat and, even better, dried. This can be achieved through pressing, which is explained later. For added beauty, add fresh or pressed flowers of different colours too — perhaps even other items like stars and glitter. Children can then gradually build up an attractive design (rather like organic wallpaper) or a simple picture like our example. It will result in a fascinating piece of leaf and flower art that can be displayed in the home — something for children to be proud of!

Leaf Printing

A freshly painted leaf can also be used to make leaf prints. When the paint is still very wet, children should simply turn their leaves over and press all areas of them against a sheet of paper or card. Doing this by hand is OK but if you have a roller, even better! In this way, the paint is transferred to the sheet and will typically show the leaf shape and all the structural veins of the donor leaf. And, by repeating the process with one or more leaves and colours, a design or picture can be gradually built up on the sheet. This might be as simple as a repeat pattern or as complex as a pictorial scene. By adding other media like painted or drawn lines, leaf prints could, for example, represent a forest on a hillside. Add little figures of people and perhaps little dogs underneath each ‘tree’ and it’ll start to come to life!

Leaf Rubbing

A leaf-rubbing activity is also fun and intriguing for little ones. Find a flat surface like a table or rigid sketch pad and place a thin sheet of paper over one or more leaves. By rubbing a thick wax crayon, charcoal stick, or soft-leaded pencil repeatedly over the sheet where there is an underlying leaf, the leaf’s form will gradually reveal itself. Children will be able to see the structural veins that form the leaf, along with leaf edges as they scribble. Children can experiment with different media, colours, and types of leaves to get different creative results.

Leaf & Flower Pressing

Leaves and small, non-bulky flowers can be dried and flattened through the process of pressing. All that’s needed is the leaves and flowers and a thick book of paper sheets — a large sketch pad is perfect or, alternatively, sheets of unprinted newsprint or blotting paper. Manually place single flowers and leaves between the leaves of the paper and then place something large, flat, and heavy over the entire thing and leave it for anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. How long will depend on the type of leaves and flowers involved (and how dry and flat they were to begin with). Once ready, the flowers and leaves will be thin and dry, ready to use. They could, for example, be used individually as mementoes or bookmarks, or assembled with glue into ‘pictures’ via a collage, as explained earlier.

Leaf-Inspired Art

Another creative activity involving leaves is simply to represent them in pencil, paint, or other media of a child’s choice. Encourage them to look carefully at the leaf’s shape and detail, so they can try to mimic them in drawn or painted form. Drawing and painting are highly useful skills for children to develop and mastering such skills will prove useful throughout their educational years. If you, as a parent, are good at drawing or painting, perhaps join in the activity too. By doing so, you can show your child what is possible with some close attention to detail and carefully placed lines and strokes. As you build up your own picture, perhaps explain how you are achieving the results, so they can learn from your approach. And — who knows — perhaps you’ll discover that you have a budding artist in the family!

Leaf Creations

Whether dried, painted, or simply picked as they are, leaves can also be made into other objects, characters, and so on. Some leaves can look like other items, for example, a particular type of tree (the Tulip Tree a.k.a. Yellow-Poplar) has individual leaves shaped rather like t-shirts! Children could look out for these and perhaps paint them in their favourite football team’s colours, draw in legs, arms and a head to make people and — hey presto — they’ve created a person! Similarly, there are several leaves shaped like hearts which, once painted in a suitable colour, can be useful when making greetings cards for birthdays or Valentine’s Day.

Another example of how leaves can represent other things can be illustrated by simple leaves like beech leaves. Each of these looks rather like the shape of a classic flower petal. So, perhaps a child can be encouraged to fan several around in a circle, almost tip to tip, to look like a big flower head. Children can paint the circle in the middle or glue a circle of coloured paper or wool there to represent the centre of the flower. And, if they start with a paper large enough, they could create several of these and make a picture of multiple flowers made of leaves. Use thin twigs, wool, or drawn crayon lines for stems and perhaps longer, thinner leaves to make the flowers’ leaves.

The activity ideas above are just a starting point and there are plenty more that are possible with leaves. Whether it’s dried leaves painted, glued and varnished onto pebbles to form paperweights, dried leaves gently sprayed with perfume to form pot-pourri, or suspended leaves that form a mobile, the possibilities for leaf art are almost endless! We hope our ideas today inspire children to use their imaginations and make some beautiful creations — all with simple, humble leaves.

Leaf Art Supports the EYFS

In addition to being fun and creative, these activities all support the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum for under-fives. EYFS areas supported by the activities include:

• Expressive Arts & Design, by giving children a good range of opportunities to express themselves, be creative, and use their imaginations while exploring colour, texture, and form.
• Communication and Language as children will build new vocabulary during the activities, particularly if they participate alongside supervising adults or older siblings.
• Physical Development as many of the activities require good hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
• Understanding the World will be supported too as children explore the outdoors to harvest leaves with their parents/supervising adults. Whilst doing so, they’ll instinctively learn more about the natural world. And, while assembling their creations, they will notice many of the finer details found in nature as they view the leaves close-up.

We hope children and families have fun with these nature-inspired activities today and reap the many benefits that underlie them. Taking part will also show little ones how something as simple as a foraged leaf can lead to a whole world of different activities that will expand their interest, boost creativity, stretch their imagination, and enhance some of their physical skills. Have fun!

Weekday Childcare in Streatham

High-quality childcare & an early years education at Little Cedars Nursery

Little Cedars Nursery is a Good Childcare Provider in Streatham and provides high-quality childcare to families in and around London SW16. As well as providing convenient and reliable childcare, this wonderful Streatham nursery provides a first-class early years education for babies and children under five. Government-funded childcare places for eligible children are also supported. Whether living in Streatham, Tooting, Furzedown, Balham, Norbury, or Colliers Wood, Little Cedars is a great choice for little ones. Our talented and caring practitioners bring out the very best in every child, nurturing them in each area of their learning and development, to ensure they’re as school-ready as possible by the time they leave us to start school. All of this is achieved in a fabulous nursery, with high-quality facilities, resources, and staff who ensure that every child feels loved, safe, and valued. If this approach appeals to you as a parent, please get in touch to explore a possible nursery place for your child at Little Cedars, Streatham.

Choose an option to begin your child’s journey with Little Cedars Nursery today:

^{* SAFETY NOTE: It’s essential for young children to be supervised by a responsible adult and be taught to avoid berries, potential choking hazards like loose acorns, prickly things like holly, and anything potentially poisonous. Children should be taught to keep their hands away from their mouths and to wash their hands well after touching leaves and spending time outdoors. Indeed, such supervision is a great way for children to learn about safety, hazards, etc. Visit our Tips for Outdoor Safety post to learn more.}