Nature Crafts for Toddlers

Making crafts that involve nature is a great learning experience for children. It allows them to use their creativity while integrating some basic science lessons. Use these free easy toddler crafts ideas from nature to teach about different types of plants, such as trees and flowers. Show your children the basic parts of a plant, like flower, stem, and leaf. You can teach your children that plants need water, sunlight, and air to grow. It is also a great opportunity to reinforce color names for younger children.

Leaves and flowers

Construction paper or card stock

Glue

Tissue paper

Scissors

Crayons/markers (optional)

Take a nature walk around your neighborhood or around a park. Gather enough grass, leaves, and wildflowers for all three crafts, or plan a separate walk for each one. Let your child choose which ones he wants to pick. Make sure that you do not pick planted flowers though!

When you return home, lay out all of the collected leaves and flowers. Have your child select leaves and flowers to glue to her sheet of construction paper or card stock. Try to let him do as much as possible by himself. If your child likes to color, give her markers and crayons to decorate the collage.

Let your toddler select one leaf from the pile to trace onto the construction paper. She may need some help with this part. Cut it out.

Have him select some tissue paper and tear it into different size pieces. Then, glue the pieces on top of the traced leaf. You may want to have seasonally appropriate colors - green for spring and summer, or red, brown, and yellow for fall.

You can make more than one and glue them all together on one page.

Tear or cut the leftover leaves, grass, and wildflowers into squares. You may need to do the first part of this craft for your toddler, depending upon how small and accurate you want your squares. If you are working with a young toddler, make sure the pieces are big enough to handle easily.

Have your child glue the squares onto the construction paper or card stock. Start by making a border and continue filling in until the page is covered. If you don’t fill in the paper completely, use it as a picture frame for artwork.

These free easy toddler crafts ideas make great presents for Grandparent’s Day or artwork for your refrigerator.