[Guest Post] Making Raking Fun Again: Simple Craft Rakes for Kids

Are you tired of cleaning up leaves yet? I’m on my third full round of raking the lawn and, as always, I find that the chore gets progressively less fun with each outing. In early October, the air is brisk, the leaves are vibrantly colored, and the chore is novel. In late October, I can still convince myself that raking an entire yard is at least as calorie-burning of an activity as a week’s worth of workouts (I can rationalize almost anything) and enjoy the task for what it gets me out of (aka: running on a treadmill). By November, however, I am hopelessly bored of the chore, cold enough to need multiple layers, and underwhelmed by the look of the brittle brown leaves. Call me a jaded raker, but this morning, I stumbled over a craft that put the fun right back into raking.

While picking my daughter up from Pre-K, I literally had to hop over a set of just-finished crafts created by the 4-year old preschool class. The children made adorable mini-rakes that I knew I would need to re-create with my own kids at home. We did. They turned out great. I wanted to share the idea with you. Here goes:

Materials needed:

• Colorful construction paper in your choice of Fall colors like red, orange, yellow, green and/or brown.


• Grey construction paper


• Leaves


• Glue or stapler

Instructions:

1. In his choice of color, help your child trace and cut out a 1” wide, 8-10” tall strip of paper. This will be the rake’s long handle.


2. Using the grey paper, cut five shorter strips (we used 1” wide, 5” tall strips). These will be the rake’s prongs.


3. Glue or staple the five grey strips to the bottom of the rake’s “handle,” fanning the strips out at varied angles so that they resemble rake prongs.


4. Bend the tips of the gray paper (about 1” from the un-attached end) so that your “rake” looks authentic.


5. As your final touch, affix real leaves collected during a nature walk (or vinyl ones cut from an autumn garland) to the rake prongs, to give your craft a “real” rake touch.

by Signe Whitson, LSW. As a mother of two little girls and working as a therapist for children, she has gained a wealth of knowledge for families. She has been featured on Psychology Today and co-authored a book "The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools and Workplaces." But that is not all, along with running a blog on passive aggressive relationships, she shares her ideas with My Baby Clothes Boutique. They bring her message to the parenting community as a way of giving back to the parenting community - their customers. Next time you welcome a new baby into your life - check out their selection of baby clothes, newborn hats, beautiful flowered baby headbands, and so much more for your little prince or princess.