Nature Ghosts and Monsters

Today we share nature based Halloween crafts for kids as our very first entry in the Paint and Play series alongside Growing a Jeweled Rose, Housing A Forest and Mess for Less. Paint and Play series will be featured every other week where we share a fun art activities for kids. In this post you will see a fun painting leaves and stones activity. Materials:

• Silk leaves ( I’d use real fall leaves if you can find them)
• Stones and driftwood
• Acrylic Paint (white)
• Googly Eyes
• Glue
• Markers

Our simple invitation to paint and create.

Something about paint and art instantly engages and attracts the kids. Just the sight of paint gets their imagination and creativity running wild and not to mention the wide grin on their cute little faces.

I protected my outdoor table with a plastic table cover and laid out the leaves.I loved the way even my 3 year old held on to the leaves with her pointer finger and painted with the other hand. So much fine motor developing happening!

Initially I had expected the kids to be happy with just painting leaves. But they did not want to stop there and they continued with the stones and driftwood we had from our Nature Puzzles activity.

After all the nature bits were painted white, they went on to create their ghosts and monsters. Always remember to make “girl ghosts”. How do you spot a girl ghost? With eye slashes, silly!

Don’t these toddler made leaf ghosts look adorable? Those painted leaves were a great canvas for budding creativity. You can easily turn the painted leaves as a writing surface and encourage beginning writers. Reluctant writers may be excited to write when the writing surface is not paper, right?

A few of the 5 year old’s creations. I adore the driftwood monster peaking from the right.

Getting creative with googly eyes was such a simple yet fun exercise. Applying necessary amount of glue to the back of the googly eye and then sticking them to the leaves and stones are big challenges for younger kids. Challenges they definitely enjoy!

Leaf and stones ghosts and monsters for Halloween

It sure was a fun afternoon painting, playing and creating these nature ghosts and monster for Halloween. This activity inspired some serious pretend play and the kids ran off to play with their newly created “toys”.

I created a garland with the painted leaves for our mantle.

Thanks for reading

Kids are 5 and 3 years old

Now pop on over to the other participating blogs and see how they had fun with Paint!

Pine Cone Spider Webs from Housing A Forest

Fall Crayon Art from Growing A Jeweled Rose

Fall Tree Window Painting from Mess for Less