Welcome to the season of apple picking, pumpkin carving, and my favorite… Pumpkin Spice Lates! The fall season ofers so many wonderful opportunites to get outside and explore; but for those days that are not crisp, cool, and generally perfect, this fun art project will hit the same spot! I like this project because, while I turn it into a speech and language actvity, it also works on fne motor skills!

What you will need:

• Colored constructon paper…orange for pumpkins; red, yellow, and green for apples
  plus more green for stems and leaves

• Scissors

• Ruler

• Pencil or Pen

• Two round head fasteners (make sure the ones you select have a big enough head to
  not ft through a hole punch hole)

• Single hole punch

Step 1:

1. Chose which fruit (yes, pumpkins are a fruit since they are from the seed of a fowering plant!) you are going to make and it’s corresponding paper. I will be making a Golden Delicious for this demo and have thus selected yellow constructon paper. Cut the paper into an 8.5 inch by 5.5 inch rectangle. Using the ruler, mark a line every 1.75 inches across the long edge of the paper for a total of 5 segments on your rectangle. Do this at the top and botom and then draw a line to connect the marks. (I typically always have this step complete when I am doing this project with my students, but depending on the age, this is not necessary.)

Step 2:

This is where litle hands defnitely get involved. Cut along the lines to separate the segments of your fruit.

Step 3:

Gather all the strips into a stack and using the single hole punch, punch a hole a litle less than a half an inch down from both the top and botom of the stack (along the shortest sides) and centered on the strip. This step can be done one hole punch at a tme if the child is using the hole punch as going through all 5 strips at the same tme can be tough!

Step 4:

Using your best leaf drawing skills, draw a leaf with a stem on green constructon paper. Again, depending on the age of the child, this step can be done for them.

Step 5:

Cut out the leaf and then hole punch the leaf by the base of the stem. Make sure to leave enough room so that the leaf won’t be ripped of.

Step 6:

While this is optonal, this is the best part in my speech pathologist brain…write on your strips either artculaton words your child is working on in speech (ex. words that begin with L, words that end in SH, etc) or have your child help brainstorm fall words, words that describe an apple or pumpkin, etc. (Hello vocabulary development and categorizaton skills!) If you are having difculty with this step, ask your child’s speech pathologist, she will have plenty of ideas of words that can go on the strips!

Step 7:

Gather the strips into a pile and place the leaf on top. Align the hole punches and place one brad through the hole.

Step 8:

This is where it can get a litle tricky. Fan out the strips into a star and fip it over so you are seeing the underside of strips. Carefully wrap each strip down and align the holes together to form a ball. Once all strips have been wrapped down, place the brad through the hole and carefully reach into the fruit to secure the tnes down.

Step 9:
You did it! Feel free to make an entre fruit basket!! Happy Fall!

About the Author

Janene Besch

Director/Speech-Language Pathologist

Janene Besch, née Martin, holds a Master’s degree in Speech Language and Hearing Sciences from San Diego State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of California at San Diego. Janene is a member of the American Academy of Private Practice in Speech Pathology
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