Cardboard Fall Tree Craft

Inside: This fall tree craft is a great group activity to add to the fall theme. Toddlers and preschoolers love working together to paint the tree and then add leaves!

Cardboard isn’t just for packaging!

It’s wonderful at the art table.

We’ve enjoyed making:

• Cardboard Christmas Trees
• Cardboard Gingerbread Men
• Cardboard Snowmen
• Cardboard Hearts
• Cardboard Easter Eggs

I’ve also shared many of the cardboard creations our 3 year olds teacher has made throughout the years in my Instagram stories.

Cardboard is so versatile and costs nothing if you save your boxes!

This fall tree craft is just one of the many cardboard creations our three year olds teacher has made throughout the years. (I’ve shared many of them in my Instagram stories.)

It also a nice fall display!

We love to collaborate with the three’s class. They share our classroom, using it on our alternate days. (My class is 2 and young 3 year olds and their class is 3 and young 4 year olds.)

For this activity, the three’s teacher (who is a whiz at anything made out of cardboard!) cut a basic tree shape from a large piece of cardboard. She had her class paint it with paintbrushes and stamps, and then invited my class to continue working on it. I decided instead of painting the tree (because it was basically covered by the time we got it), we would glue leaves on top.

While we love collaborating with other classes, this activity does NOT need to be a collaboration piece. It can be done by the same group of children. But if you do have a another class who might like to help, this is a great activity for that.

Check out even more recycled crafts here!

Toddler and Preschool Fall Tree Craft

Supplies

• Large piece of cardboard
• Xacto knife (or similar)
• Leaf cookie cutters and/or stamps*
• Tempera paint
• Paintbrushes

*We have a big collection of assorted chunky stamps from various companies. Searching Amazon I found a leaf stamp in this collection and also this one.

If you want to also add artificial leaves:

• Artificial leaves
• Glue

Preparation

• First, cut out your tree. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. A simple trunk with thick branches is fine.
• Pour paint into containers.

Setting Everything Up

Place the tree on a table and provide containers of paint, brushes, and stamps.

Invite the children to come paint and stamp leaves on the tree.

We did this during our free-choice centers time, so we had groups of children coming up to the art table at random times.

When finished, let dry.

If you are going to add artificial leaves, this can be done on a different day.

Adding Artificial Leaves

Either provide containers of glue and paintbrushes or small bottles of glue.

We used bottles of glue because my two’s class loves squeezing glue and it’s another great way to strengthen the hands.

We used tinted glue that was leftover from our acorn collage craft.

I love tinting glue. because it adds a bit more color to the activity.

When finished and dry, display!

Our tree was made for our Thanksgiving Feast, which was in our building’s Fellowship Hall.