CraftyFileCo planning guide

Fall Leaf Crafts for Preschool: Characters and Collages

For preschool fall leaf crafts, make a leaf character with a face and limbs or arrange paper leaves on a hedgehog. Choose the version carefully: the two leaf-friend listings have different colouring options despite their similar names.

Choose coloured or colouring leaf friends

The Autumn Leaf Craft set lists ten designs with leaf bodies, facial features, arms, mittens, legs, boots and seasonal accessories. Twenty pages contain ten coloured and ten black-and-white templates in A4 and US Letter.

Children colour if using outlines, cut the dashed lines and paste the features and accessories onto the leaf. The listing directs Actual Size / 100% printing on regular paper or cardstock.

As a preschool setup, show how to place the face before gluing. Keep each leaf's accessories on its own mat so a boot or mitten does not get lost in a shared pile. Arrange the cutting support your group needs.

Choose the colouring-only leaf set deliberately

The separate Leaf Craft for Kids download has ten leaf-friend templates with a body, eyes, mouth, arms, hands, legs and shoes. It includes a small finished example on each printable.

Its description explicitly says the templates are black-and-white and that coloured mockups show possible finished results. Prepare colouring tools even if the listing picture shows a fully coloured character.

The materials named are a printer, paper or cardstock, colouring tools, scissors and glue. Adult supervision is recommended when young children use scissors. Print at Actual Size if you want to retain the intended proportions.

Both sets make characters, but they are separate purchases. Choose the artwork and colour options you want before printing the first page.

Decorate a hedgehog instead of adding limbs

The Fall Hedgehog download has twenty activity pages: ten coloured and ten black-and-white. The page choices include the hedgehog, leaf groups, apples, mushrooms, acorns, pinecones and other fall pieces, in both paper sizes.

The activity is to colour if needed, cut and arrange decorations onto the hedgehog. Choose a few decoration sheets first rather than treating all ten page choices as compulsory steps.

This gives children a collage task. They can vary the pattern of leaves and other pieces without making another leaf-shaped person.

Give the display one clear purpose

Try this classroom routine:

• Choose characters or a hedgehog collage for the first demonstration.
• Show the printed version children will actually receive.
• Colour while the page is flat.
• Cut with the planned adult support.
• Arrange loose pieces before gluing.

For an autumn wall, invite children to name their character or describe their decoration choices. Those prompts are suggested extensions; the downloads provide the craft artwork, not a supplied leaf-identification lesson.

By CraftyFileCo · Published 2026-11-07 · Updated 2026-11-07