Autumn Leaves

• Trace around your child's hand on a paper plate. Place his hand so his fingers are on the ridged edge of the plate. Repeat the tracing until you have six plates this way. Let your child color the hand shapes in autumn colors such as gold, dark red, dark orange and brown using crayons or markers. On another paper plate, color a 2-inch wide strip brown. Cut out the hand shapes and brown strip, or allow the child to cut them out with safety scissors.
  
  Help the child to arrange the cutouts in a fan shape, with the fingers at the top. When you're satisfied with the arrangement, let him glue the shapes together at the bottom using a glue stick. Glue the hand-shaped "leaves" to the brown strip, the "tree trunk."
  
  

Turkey

• Make colored hand shapes as in "Autumn Leaves." Cut a circle measuring 2 inches in diameter from the center of another paper plate and color it brown. On the same plate, cut out a 1-inch wide section of the ridged rim and color it red. Hold it with the ridges lined up horizontally and make a cut in the center, from the bottom edge to the middle, and trim away a little of the paper on each side of the cut until you have a V-shaped notch. Color another whole paper plate brown.
  
  Help the child to assemble the turkey, using the whole brown plate as the turkey's body, the small brown circle as the head, the red ridged piece as the wattles and the hand shapes as the tail. Let her glue the pieces in place.
  
  

Hanging Pumpkin

• Ask your child to color the backs of two paper plates orange and decorate them as jack-o'-lanterns, using black outlines for the eyes, nose and mouth, or just add brown or green lines to indicate the sections on a pumpkin. Ask him to draw a few leaves and a stem on another plate and color them green or brown. Let him cut out the shapes with safety scissors. Glue both ends of a 12-inch piece of ribbon to the inside edge of one paper plate to form a hanging loop. Be sure to place it at the top if the child drew a design on the plates. Glue the plates together at the edges. Glue the stem and leaves to the top of the pumpkin.