Updated March 2, 2024
Are you looking for a fall art project for toddlers?
You are not alone!
Today we are sharing Fall pinecone painting for toddlers!
It isn’t always easy to keep a curious and active toddler busy.
Toddlers are always on the go and love to try new things.
Fall is our favorite season for doing arts and crafts using items we have found out in nature.
The days are perfect for being outside and taking nature walks.
We take a bag with us on our walks to save all of the treasure our toddlers find along the way.
Fall Pinecone Painting For Toddlers [2021]
Supplies:
Pine Cones – You can gather pinecones on a nature walk or you can find them at any craft store.
Paint in fall colors (orange, yellow, red, green, brown)
Brown Paper
White Paper
Scissors
Glue
A paper plate
Instructions:
Invite your child to cut brown paper into strips to create a tree trunk and limbs.
Encourage your child to glue the tree trunk and limbs onto a sheet of white paper.
Squirt paint onto a paper plate and lay the pinecones in the paint.
Invite your child to roll the pine cones across the paper, to give the illusion of leaves.
We also rolled the pine cones across the bottom, to look like leaves have fallen on the ground.
Allow to dry and display.
I have shared in other posts that a fun idea to display your toddler’s artwork is to buy some cheap frames and to feature their seasonal art creations throughout your house.
You can get inexpensive frames at Target, Walmart, or on amazon.
Here is a bonus pinecone painting activity:
Fall Pinecone Painting:
For this activity, I let the kids paint with the pine cones and then they folded the page in half, pressed it down, and then opened it to reveal their design.
I used tempera paint that you can find at Walmart or order on Amazon. I’ll link to the paint below.
This is an easy activity if you find large pinecones when you go out on a nature walk.
I used red, orange and brown paint.
You could add in green paint too.
The day we made this project I didn’t have any green paint available.
We love sharing fall activities for toddlers.
Tips for making arts and crafts enjoyable for your toddler:
- Play music! Music can help improve mood and draw out their creativity. music helps fuel our imagination. Toddlers are at the right age to really begin enjoying music, and it’s a huge part of development!
- Encourage movement. Asking a toddler to sit for too long is a recipe for disaster. This is a super important step, whether taking breaks to get up and move around a little or incorporating movement into it. We want our toddlers to find art time to be a joy, not a chore.
- Discuss their art with them. Write down the words they use to describe their art if they want you to.
- Allow them to do more than one art project. Get them more paint and paper if they ask.
- If the weather allows go outside and do art projects outside in nature. Fresh air and exercise are always appreciated, and the environment might give some much-needed inspiration for arts and crafts!
- Laugh, sing, and smile.
- Take nature walks and collect items like leaves, acorns, feathers, flowers, and rocks to use in art projects. Bring your camera and take lots of pictures of changing leaves or animals you might see getting ready for winter. Look for squirrels scurrying about searching for acorns. Be sure to talk about the things they see and hear. Point out the bright blue sky and listen to the leaves crunching underneath your feet.
Why is doing arts and crafts important for toddlers?
Arts and crafts are important activities for toddlers to get ample opportunity to engage in every day.
These activities encourage creativity, imagination, and language skills!
The best way for young children to learn is through play and doing activities that bring them joy.
Since arts and crafts require working with objects, it teaches toddlers about different shapes, textures, and colors.
They will also learn how things work and how they match.
Creativity is also developed from arts and crafts, as it encourages kids to experiment and play in a relaxed and fun environment.
Children often have an immense imagination, and the best way to turn this endless imagination into something productive is through arts and crafts.
There are various colors, shapes, and materials, not forgetting activities that kids can choose from. This allows them to explore multiple options and select the most enjoyable ones.
And maybe through this, they can discover an enjoyable hobby such as drawing, which can develop into a lucrative career in the future.
Pinecone painting is an adorable toddler fall art activity, but did you know it is also an excellent fine motor activity?
Your toddler will practice grasping the apple pieces, picking them up, and putting them down without dropping them.
This is an important early learning skill for your 2-year-old to practice.
What are Fine Motor Skills?
Fine motor skills are essential for using the small muscles in fingers, hands, and arms.
These muscles are important during activities such as drawing, buttoning, constructing with blocks, and zipping up a coat.
Fine motor skills impact your child’s ability to do the above types of activities and the speed they can complete them.
To ensure your child performs these tasks successfully, they will need lots of opportunities to practice and gain mastery in the early toddler years.
Some of the common fine motor skills are:
- Pencil skills like coloring and drawing
- Scissor skills such as cutting and rearranging the paper
- Doll dressing and manipulation
- Dressing, i.e., zips, buttons, lacing, and tying shoelaces
- Basic hygiene like brushing teeth, washing their face, and combing their hair
- Construction skills such as puzzles and Duplo
Why are fine motor skills important for toddlers?
It’s hard not to emphasize the importance of fine motor skills in everyday life because they enable us to perform simple tasks.
If a child is unable to complete the basic everyday tasks, it will take a toll on their self-esteem, affecting their play, academics, and co-curricular activities.
Also, children without the appropriate fine motor skills will find it hard to get independent life skills such as feeding or dressing, which will have many implications on relationships with other peers.
That is why fine motor activities are so important for your toddler to get plenty of opportunities to engage in.
Thankfully, there are amazing activities that you can do to help kickstart those developments outside of normal day-to-day life.
Arts and crafts often require children to use their hands in a specific manner; through this coordination, they will develop bilateral coordination and fine motor skills.
For instance, drawing lines and dots, tearing a piece of paper, or cutting it with shears are demanding assignments in terms of mastery, and children enjoy doing them.
Such tasks can help a toddler develop faster and become more skilled in other everyday activities like dressing.
We hope your toddler enjoys this fall pine cone painting project
Keeping your active 2-year-old busy is challenging!
Let your toddler explore and create as much art as they want.
Spend time on arts and crafts every day.
If you are in the kitchen making dinner, set them up at the table with an art project.
It will allow you to get dinner made and provide them with an opportunity to practice their fine motor and language skills.
