The Fall season is full of fun decor, crafts, and leaf projects. I thought I would take the time to add an exciting paper leaf fishing game for kids that my daughter and I came up with. It is similar to go fish, but its actually much more fun and fits the Fall theme. Let’s get started!
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Table of Contents
What You Will Need
The items you will need to make this craft are simple and you probably have most of them around the house.
- Construction Paper (Leaf colors)
- Paperclips
- Magnets
- Popsicle sticks
- String
- Crayons
Step 1: Cut Out Your Leaves
You can do this several ways. If you have a Cricut cutting machine like me you can simply pick a leaf pattern and have the leaves done in minutes. You can draw leaves free hand, use a stencil, or trace an actual leaf alternatively.
I made 6 leaves out of each of the 4 colors of construction paper I had. So that was roughly 24 leaves. You can do more or less, that is up to you.
Step 2: Attach Paperclips To Each Leaf
I had small black metal paperclips lying around so that is what I chose to use. You can use any metal paperclip you like.
Step 3: Tie A String & Magnet To A Popsicle Stick
Take a piece of string and tie it to a popsicle stick. Attach a magnet to the end of the string. If you’re fancy with knots you can easily come up with a way to tie your string to the magnet, but if you’re like me you get creative.
I hole punched a piece of construction paper, tied my string through it, and glued it to the top of the magnet. It worked like a charm.
Step 4: Have Fun Picking Up Leaves With Your Fishing Pole!
Naturally you have to try out your fishing pole to make sure it works. It is extremely fun to fish for leaves! My daughter absolutely loved just picking them up repeatedly before we came up with our next steps.
Additional Fun Steps & Game Rules
These following steps are optional, but make the paper leaf fishing game much more fun!
You will need…
- A flat piece of carboard
- 1 sheet of white printer paper
- crayons
- 1 paperclip
- A glue stick
Step 5: Make A Color Spinner
This is a fairly simple process. Cut out a circle from plain printer paper. and divide it into 4 sections like we did or however many colors of leaves you have.
My daughter enjoyed being my assistant for this part of the project. She colored the sections accordingly to our leaf colors. We simply glued our color circle to a piece of cardboard. Poster board or anything similar would work well.
Step 6: Make An Arrow For Your Color Spinner
Make an arrow from a bit of cardboard. You can cut out the arrow freehand or use a stencil. Then, take a plain paperclip and straighten it out. Poke the paperclip through the arrow.
Now, poke the paperclip through the center of your color circle and bend the paperclip underneath. You can tape it with duck tape or scotch tape.
Now you have an exciting paper leaf fishing game to play! What are the rules? I’m glad you asked!
Rules of the Game
- Spin the color spinner. (Youngest spins first.)
- Whatever color the spinner lands on you must pick up that color leaf with your pole.
- If the color of leaf you land on is buried you get 2 attempts to pick it up then it is the next players turn.
- The player to pick up the last color of any leaf is the winner.
- It is okay if your pole picks up more than one color while attempting to grab. As long as you get the color you meant to pick up with it. Simply put the others back in the pile.
Make Up Your Own Rules!
This game is meant to be fun! If you come up with new rules for it that is perfectly fine! As long as you’re having fun, that is all that matters! This is such a fun fall craft to make with the kids.
They will definitely enjoy it and so will you! If you come up with really cool rules to the game or a variation feel free to leave it in the comments or email it to [email protected]!
Happy Crafting!
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