Place Value Scarecrow Craft

Colleen Beck OTR/L
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

Fall is the perfect season to incorporate scissor skills and fine motor activities into fun, themed crafts, and this scarecrow project checks every box. Whether you’re working on cutting practice, pencil grasp development, or visual motor integration, this craft combines it all with a seasonal twist. Plus, it’s a great way to tie in academic skills like math facts or handwriting practice. Be sure to explore our collection of scissor skills activities, fine motor tasks, fall fine motor activities.

Also be sure to check out our resource on how math and fine motor skills are connected.

Scarecrow Craft for OT

We have a lot of kids crafts for occupational therapy here on the website, and this scarecrow craft is one of my favorites.

If you need a math craft idea that is perfect for this time of year, this is a good one because you can target the skills or areas that you need to based on the child’s needs.

This scarecrow craft can be used for any grade or age. Kids can be resistant to practicing extra math facts and practicing skills that they’ve learned in school or homeschool.  But often times, math skills like adding and composing numbers up to 1000 in this second grade math activity NEED additional practicing at home.  So how do you get that extra practice in without pulling teeth (or pulling out your own hair!)??  Playful Math activities make learning and practicing skills fun. We made this Math Scarecrow Craft to practice second grade math, including place value and composing numbers…but you can make it age-appropriate for preschool on up through elementary-aged kids.

 

Make this Scarecrow craft this Fall and practice math facts and addition or subtraction. This is perfect for second grade math or any preschool or elementary age student, and a fantastic scissor skill exercise for kids.
 
 


Scarecrow Craft

 
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To make this scarecrow craft, you’ll need a few materials:
 
 
Make this Scarecrow craft this Fall and practice math facts and addition or subtraction. This is perfect for second grade math or any preschool or elementary age student, and a fantastic scissor skill exercise for kids.
 
To make the scarecrow craft (and totally sneak math into this Fall craft):


Scarecrow Craft for Kids

First, snip the Goldenrod cardstock into long strips about 1/2 inch wide.  Cutting the cardstock in long cutting lines is an excellent exercise in scissor skills.  The cardstock provides a thicker resistance than construction or printer paper.  This added resistance provides feedback to kids who are working on line awareness and smooth cutting lines.  
 
You can draw lines on the cardstock with a pencil/pen, or if the child needs more assistance with scissor skills, make the lines with a thick marker.  Cutting the long strips of cardstock require the child to open/shut the scissors with smooth cutting strokes as they cut along the lines.  Cutting all of the hair straw strands for the scarecrow craft is quite an exercise in scissor skills!
 
Next, you’ll have the child cut a large circle from the Ivory Cardstock.  We used a bowl and traced a circle, but you could also have the child draw their own circle.  This will become the face of the scarecrow.  Cutting a circle with smooth cutting strokes is a more difficult task for children than cutting strait lines.  Kids may need verbal and physical prompts to cut along the curved line with accuracy.
 
You can draw a hat-ish shape from the brown paper bag.  I say hat-ISH because a scarecrow often has a floppy and battered hat on his head, so a hat shape that looks mostly like a hat is just about perfect for this scarecrow craft!  
 
Kids can cut the hat shape and may require more assistance with this part.  Cutting a material like a brown paper bag is more difficult than cutting regular printer paper, so the flimsy-ness of the paper requires more skill and accuracy with scissor control and line awareness.  
 
Jagged lines make this scarecrow look authentic, though, so feel free to add more snips and cuts into the hat, too!
 
Make this Scarecrow craft this Fall and practice math facts and addition or subtraction. This is perfect for second grade math or any preschool or elementary age student, and a fantastic scissor skill exercise for kids.
 
Next, you will crumble up the paper hat shape.  My daughter really got into this part. “Crumble up this paper?? Awwww Yeah!”
 
Crumbling paper is a great fine motor strengthening exercise for children.  They really strengthen the intrinsic muscles of their hands with paper crumpling.  What a workout this scarecrow craft is!
 
Glue the hat in place on the scarecrow’s head.
Make this Scarecrow craft this Fall and practice math facts and addition or subtraction. This is perfect for second grade math or any preschool or elementary age student, and a fantastic scissor skill exercise for kids.
 

Scarecrow Math Craft

 
To make the hair of the scarecrow, glue the goldenrod strips on the head and along the hat.  Cut a triangle from the orange cardstock for the scarecrow’s nose.  Use buttons, paper scraps, and ribbons to dress up your scarecrow, adding eyes, mouth, and any other decorations.  We received the buttons we used to make the eyes from our pals at www.craftprojectideas.com.  Add a smile and your scarecrow is ready to decorate walls and doorways this Fall!
 
But wait!  Make this cute scarecrow into a Math activity that the kids will Fall in love with.  Yep, I went there.
 


Place Value Craft

To incorporate math into this scarecrow craft, use those paper strips.  We made this activity perfect for practicing second grade addition skills.  
 
My second grader has been working on building numbers up to 1000.  On the strips, I wrote a three digit number on the end of many of the paper strips.  She then chose different ways to describe that number.  She wrote out the number in words on some strips.  
 
On other strips, she built the three digit number using Common Core strategies.  For example, I wrote the number 421 on one strip.  She demonstrated how to “build” that number by writing “400 + 20 + 1”.  This technique helped her practice skills she’s learned at school while understanding what makes up a three digit number.  She was able to identify the hundreds, tens, and ones in a three digit number.  Work on and discuss place value and number order with this activity.
 

The nice thing about this scarecrow craft is that you can adjust the math to fit any age…or just make the craft without the math facts for a super cute Fall Scarecrow!

 
Make this Scarecrow craft this Fall and practice math facts and addition or subtraction. This is perfect for second grade math or any preschool or elementary age student, and a fantastic scissor skill exercise for kids.
 

Scarecrow Math Tips

How can you make this Math Scarecrow Craft work for your child’s needs?  Try these ideas:
 
  • Adjust the activity slightly by working on math facts.  Write a number on the end of the strip and ask your child to write the addition or subtraction problem on the length of the hair.
  • Write the SAME number on the end of each strip.  Ask your child to write each strip with different math addition problems that make up different ways to reach the number.  For example, write the number 16 on each strip.  Your child can write 8+8 on one strip, and other strips with 10+6, 12+4, 20-4, etc.

More Scarecrow Activities

Looking for more scarecrow activities? Below are scarecrow activities for kids that cover a variety of areas: math, language arts, art, and more. 
 
Stop by and see what our friends have come up with using this week’s Scarecrow theme:
 
Scarecrow Syllables for Second Grade – Use a scarecrow activity to help with early literacy skills in this creative scarecrow activity from Look! We’re Learning! 
  
Scarecrow Measures – Another scarecrow math activity, this one from Crafty Kids at Home is a fun addition to a Fall themed learning plan. 
 
Scarecrow Silhouette Art Project – A Scarecrow craft that the kids will love is fun to add to your therapy plan. Use this idea from School Time Snippets. 
 
Scarecrow Compound Word Match Game – Work on more literacy using this idea from Creative Family Fun.
 
 

More of our Creative Math ideas:

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Scarecrow craft to help with math skills

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