The last Friday in November was one of those mornings where the sky was a crisp blue, and autumn hung in the air. It was cool, but you could still walk around barefoot. I love those mornings.
Over the course of the previous week, the trees in our yard decided to drop their leaves and go bare for the winter. This left us with a thin blanket of yellow, orange, and brown leaves.
In Los Angeles, this is our sliver of fall.
Blink and you might miss it. But it is there, and we made the most of it. We spent our fall morning gathering, jumping, and throwing, until Rémy was ready for a nap.
It was near perfect, one of those moments in my life that force me into an anticipatory nostalgia. You know – when you look around and realize that your child will soon be too old for all this, that this warm loving moment is transitory.
So I try my best to stay present, while cataloging all the details. The coy smile when he lay in the leaves. The way he dumped the leaves onto himself. The flying leaves as he kicked them up. I tried to will my brain to remember it all.
Then after this magical day ended, we started a weeklong dive into leaf activities. I spent quite a bit of time searching for leaf activities that would match Rémy’s skill level, only to be let down. What I found were countless crafts that required gluing, cutting, and painting. He’s not old enough for any of that.
So I put together my own program, tailor made for young toddlers under two. We captured what we could, so you can check out our week of fun on video, and keep reading for a breakdown of each activity.
Sweeping and Dust Pan
When faced with a yard full of leaves, Rémy’s tool of choice was his trusty broom. He has loved his broom that came in the Melissa & Doug Cleaning Set from day one. He has a grand time helping me clean up inside, and it’s been a prominent figure in our outside play.
But pushing the leaves around took it to another level. Never before did he have so much to sweep. He excitedly did his best to move all the leaves toward the piles that we made. It made no difference whether he was sweeping the walkway or the grass.
He also got quite a bit of use out of his dustpan. Inside, he’s been practicing holding it while I sweep in fallen food, and then carefully carrying it over to the trashcan. Outside, he got to practice with large scoops of leaves.
Jumping in Piles
There is something about a giant pile of leaves that just beckons to you. How can a child not want to jump in? And when they do, it fills the senses. The crunching sound as the leaves crack under the weight, the cushiness under foot, the smell of old leaves and soil.
Technically, Rémy is too young to be jumping in any piles, so I helped him out a bit. He was giggling the whole time I lifted him up and as he waddled through all the leaves.
Making Nests
I’m pulling this activity straight out of my childhood. My sister and I would gather leaves and form either a nest or the walls of a house. Then we would play in our nest or house for hours.
At this early stage, I introduced the idea of forming a nest to Rémy. He helped me move the leaves into a large pile, and watched me create a circle.
Then we hopped inside our nest and inspected leaves, played at being ducks, and snuggled. As he gets older, the imaginative play will certainly become more elaborate, but we had so much fun this first time around.
Leaf Picnic
Every lunch for the past month, Rémy has put together a little meal for his stuffed animal friends. Usually it’s bits of spinach or carrots that I’m chopping up. His favorite friend to feed is the giraffe, who now has quite a stained mouth.
I took that enthusiasm and channeled it into an outdoor picnic, featuring leaves and a few furry friends. He stirred up a leaf feast, served up bowls full of deliciousness to the animals, and then helped them eat.
Gathering and Dumping
This may be one of the simplest activities on the list, but it’s also his favorite. His urge to collect items in a basket or bowl, move them somewhere else, and then dump everything out, is tremendous.
Rémy would get caught up in simply filling up a bucket or basket or truck, then dumping it out. Sometimes he would use his shovel to fill, sometimes his hand, but it’s all variations on the same theme.
And it’s a great theme. He is working on that basic urge that drives most toddlers his age to gather and transport.
Leaf Drop
Lately, he’s been working on his coin box. I’ve watched his little hands become more and more skilled as he manipulates the coins.
He’s also spent quite a bit of time opening and closing the lids to canisters. So I thought we could combine the two activities with a leaf drop.
Using an old coffee canister, I cut a slit large enough for leaves to be dropped through. Depending on the skill level of the child, you can make the opening large, or small.
I then put the canister on a tray with a basket of leaves. I found that the best leaves were a bit thicker, and not completely brown and crunchy. Too dried out, and the activity became a game of crushing the dead leaves.
The activity sat on our shelves for a while, but now I’m moving the canister outside so that he can use it as a leaf specimen collector.
Matching
Rémy has been working on matching three-dimensional objects to pictures. To this point it has mainly been with animals or shapes. So I thought we’d try a matching game with all the little items we found outside.
He is not at the point where he can distinguish and match different types of leaves, so I chose to have him work with a leaf, a rock, a stick, and a seedpod. This ended up being fairly easy for him. He found quick success on his first sitting.
To set this up, I took pictures of each item against a white background and printed up the pictures on cardstock. I laminated the leaf, so it would hold up a bit longer. Then I presented the pictures and items on a tray.
Counting Book
There has always been a counting book of some sorts in Rémy’s reading basket. He has a few different ones, and he loves them all for a quick read. So I thought a leaf counting book would be an easy way to integrate his leaf work into the basket.
To create the book, I sent numbered cardstock and leaves through my laminator, and then tied the pages together with yarn and a festive pom pom.
The lamination has held up over a few weeks, but I know that the leaves inside will eventually break down. It’s been a popular reading pull lately, so the book has had a good, useful life.
Leaf Sensory Bag
We haven’t done a good-old-fashioned sensory bag in quite a while, but he was certainly a fan of them a few months back. I thought this might be a good time to break out the zip locks.
I wanted an activity where Rémy would be encouraged to really observe the leaves, and be able to compare different types of leaves in a low-key way. The sensory bag offers up enough movement and engagement to keep his attention for a while.
The bag was one of the easiest sensory bags I’ve put together. Literally leaves and water. But the power was is the prep this time. He and I went on a leaf hunt around the yard, collecting all the different types of leaves that had dropped. These are the leaves we used in the bag.
Sticky Tree
I’ve seen all those pom pom sticky walls that are so popular, and thought we could give it a go with leaves. I will admit, that this activity was right on the edge of his capabilities at 16/17 months. It gave him enough of a challenge that he couldn’t breeze through it, but really had to concentrate on what his hands were doing.
This activity required me drawing out a bare tree, taping it to the wall, and then adding a layer of contact paper. Beside the tree, I sat a small tray of leaves.
Before starting the activity, we sat down in front of the tree and talked about how trees have a trunk, and branches. Leaves grow from the branches before falling off. Our mission was to put the leaves on the branches.
More
I’m looking for more!
What interesting things have you been doing with your young toddler? Let’s get a larger list going, by adding your ideas to the comments.
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