Fall Suncatcher Preschool Craft

My daughter Anna loves craft activities, and this autumn-themed suncatcher was a big hit! I got the idea after seeing these fun Halloween Silhouette Suncatchers at Creative Family Fun, but as you can tell ours wound up feeling more autumn themed than Halloween themed.

Fall Suncatcher Preschool Craft

Silhouette suncatchers are super easy to make. All you need is contact paper, some construction paper for the silhouettes, and tissue paper for the stained glass effect. You can cut your tissue paper into squares for a more defined effect, or tear it. Anna chose to do a mixture of both.

I am a big fan of personalizing structured crafts, so when Anna asked for a purple cat instead of a black cat, I went with it. She chose to draw lots of fun things on her purple cat, and then she asked for a small “baby” green dog to play with the cat. I went with a toy terrier because it is something I can kind of draw, and a toy terrier puppy is smaller than many cats.

We mixed both orange and yellow tissue paper just for variety. When I pulled them out, I was still thinking Halloween, but the combination along with the silhouettes we decided on makes it look like two animals playing with autumn leaves in the background. Perfect!

I tore the backing off of MOST of the contact paper, but left the edges intact. This made it easy to tape the contact paper to the table. It also created the lovely jagged edge you can see in the photo at the top of this post!

Do you have any craft ideas I should try with Anna? She loves doing “projects” as she calls them with me while her older brother and sisters are at school every day!

MaryAnne Kochenderfer

Website

MaryAnne lives in Silicon Valley with her Stanford professor husband Mike and their four children. She writes about parenting through education, creativity, and play. Mama Smiles - Joyful Parenting is a space to share crafts, hands on learning activities, and family outings that enrich lives and bring families together.