Fall for Preschoolers - Part 2

Playing in the leaves is fun. I think most of us have done it at some point in our lives. Kids are especially fascinated by the leaves crunching under their feet and so I decided to take Adrian and Zahavah out for some playtime in the leaves. Needless to say, it was a BIG hit and it was repeated most everyday. Before heading out, I had made a list of things to do for Adrian. 

Outdoor Play with Leaves

Action List for fun in the Leaves

1.  Rake the leaves into a pile

2. Jump into the pile of leaves

3. Throw some of the leaves in the air

4. Shuffle the leaves with your feet to make a path

5. Bury yourself in the leaves

6. Catch a falling leaf

7. Dump leaves onto a friend (with permission)

8. Smell the leaves

9. Hear the leaves crunching under your feet

10. Roll in the leaves

Success. Adrian did it all and particularly loved numbers 2,3,6 and 7.

Fine Motor - Toothpick Punching a Leaf

First time we ever did any toothpick punching and it was a blast. I took a small piece of styrofoam, printed a small leaf, stabilized it on the styrofoam and showed Adrian how to punch through it. He did well and was patient in punching all over the leaf margin and veins.

Fine Motor - "Dot to Dot" onto Styrofoam

To show Adrian his good punching skills, we removed the leaf once he was finished and I asked him to traced all over the small holes in the styrofoam. He was so impressed to see a leaf appear! Drawing on styrofoam is more difficult than on regular paper of course so it required extra dexterity. If you want to use the same leaf, check out Big Activities.

How Many Leaves?

To play how many leaves left on the tree, we used dice and leaves stickers. Adrian loves stickers and peeling them off the "clear" sheets is quite a fine motor activity sometimes. To accomplish this activity, roll one die per tree and stick the numbers of leaves your die indicates. I printed the tree sheet using Wallstory-murals' graphic.

Fall Leaves Scavenger Hunt

I prepared this little hunting game one night. I'm always looking for ideas of activities to do outside while the weather still holds. Adrian loves "hunts" so I thought he'd like it and he sure did. We were able to find all these in our yard (not necessarily the same variety but the colors...)

To print your own copy of this hunt, contact me and I'll e-mail you one. 

Leaf graphing

So we collected some leaves thanks to our leaf scavenger hunt and I added a few to the bag so we could make this nice graph. I asked Adrian to count the leaves of each color and to fill in the squares as needed using the markers. The grid was printed from E Is For Explore.

Leaves printing

Once our graph was completed, we used the leaves for a printmaking exercise. Adrian painted one side of the leaf with fall colored paint, turned them over and then pressed them on the paper. I provided only yellow, red and green paint. Adrian made him own orange and we then proceeded to mix the red, yellow and green together. To Adrian's delight, brown was created. Just THE perfect color for fall leaves. Please keep in mind that the best prints are made using a minimum of paint and by painting the veinous side of the leaf (aka the back/uncolored side).

Fall for Preschoolers

Fall has officially arrived a while ago out here in Germany, but this week was peak for foliage. It is looking good outside and we transported all the beauty inside with fall activities for preschooler Adrian. You will not find as many activities as you usually do though because we were away in the Alps for a a few days enjoying the colors of the season.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; our fall retreat

Making leaves out of fall colored playdough

Kids love play doh but my son usually ends up losing interest because he is not too sure what to do with it. This week, I brought out fall colored play doh and fall cookie cutters (Target, dollar bins). I modeled how to flatten the dough and showed him what happens if I pressed lightly and heavily on the cutters. He preferred the latter and loved taking away the un-needed doh to have beautiful leaves stand on their own.

Making a leaves puzzle out of play doh

Another activity done with the same items was this simple fall leaf puzzle made of play doh. I asked Adrian to cut some leaves out of play doh and to keep the leftovers. I then showed him how to put the leaf inserts back into their "mold". It was a big hit. We did it with different leaves but also made "color puzzle" as seen above.

Leaves rubbing with fall colored crayon stubs

I was aiming at doing this activity with real leaves but remembered I had the stencils (Oriental TRading Co) so I decided to use the stencils as we hadn't gathered any leaves yet. The result was beautiful and Adrian liked it.

Watercolor Q-Tip leaves in fall colors

This was Adrian's first attempt at watercolors. We used Crayola's washable watercolors for this and it went very well. To show Adrian how to make the watercolors ready to paint, I drew the trunk and branches of the tree. He did the rest, including the falling leaves and the ones on the ground. I found this cute idea on La Classe della Maestra Valentina. She has such beautiful projects on her blog. Can't wait until my kids grown up just so they can try her projects! :)

Leaf Puzzle - Anatomy of a leaf

I believe this leaf anatomy puzzle was purchased from Montessori Outlet. It wasn't all that difficult for Adrian but I like to use the puzzle instead of making "Parts of a Leaf" booklet. I told Adrian the parts as he put them in the tray and asked him to point to the ones I called later. I would have liked for the puzzle to be labeled but oh well.

Making a leaf garland

This activity idea came from My Montessori Journey. It's basically a leaf garland, made with a fall ribbon and some silk fall leaves (found mine at a dollar store). I made a small incision in each leaf so they could be threaded on the ribbon. 

Fall for Preschoolers - Part 2

Fall week is coming to an end now (how odd since Fall has just arrived, right?) but it was filled with fun and educational activities. Here is one last look at what we've been up to during that timeframe.

Outdoor Play - Math Mushroom hunting in the yard

One of the favorite activities this week was the mushroom backyard hunting. Hidden on the grass and especially close to tree roots and plants were 11 little wooden mushrooms I hand painted (these are about 1in wide and are in fact wooden drawer pulls purchased unfinished on etsy.com from a seller named ClickityClack who also does wooden toys and such). Each polka dot mushroom had a different quantity of white dots (ranging from 0 to 10). Adrian's job was to find all 11 of them and put them in his basket. At the end, I asked him to order them from 0 to 10 on our table but of course, we had to hunt for mushrooms several times before we got to that math part! :)

Art -Thumbprint Fall Tree

Another well loved activity was this bare tree outfitted with thumb-made leaves! We had no orange paint so Adrian helped make this beautiful orange you see. Adrian loves activities involving paint so he was excited to see all the colors on the table today. The tree was printed from Created by Spark who designed the tree for the new hip trend of thumbprint wedding guest books.

Science - Botany - Parts of a Tree

Well since we are talking about how trees start to change in the fall, I figured we might as well discuss their parts too! ("Parts of a leaf" will come later during Leaves Week.) We first discussed the parts thanks to Exploring Nature's handout and then proceeded to color only one part per page in our little Parts of a Tree book. Adrian knew all the parts except for "Trunk" which he called "bark. Can't blame him. There is bark on the trunk and that is what I explained. ;) To make our Parts of a Tree booklet, I printed one tree per page using a picture found on Montessori for Everyone.

Math - How many Acorns did this Squirrel Eat?

Working with natural items is always a favorite of Adrian. For this activity, I supplied 8 squirrel cards printed from a grid game found on PreKinders and then wrote a number in between 0 and 10 on each card. Adrian then had to put the right number of acorn caps with the squirrel who had eaten that many. At the end, no caps were left in the bowl. He thought it was funny that some squirrels had not eaten at all while some ate eight nuts! :)

Fine Motor - Literacy - Clothespins and Which Apple basket is different?

A mix of good observation and fine motor for this fall themed activity. Adrian first had to look attentively at each card (you can find them on PreKinders) to see which fall picture was different on each and then put a clothespin on that one. These clothespins (from my local grocery store) being smaller, they gave him much less trouble than the big ones I use on my clothesline and well...aren't they just the cutest?

Fall for Preschoolers

Believe it or not fall is almost here and as such, this past week, we have been preparing for it by doing fall themed activities. I had a bit of trouble sorting through the list of potential trays to put out for the week though. Normally, it wouldn't be difficult but since I am planning a week for fall, one for apples and one for leaves, I think I spread myself a tad bit thin as these could all be incorporated into the autumn theme. :) Anyhow, here is a sample of what we did on the first few days of the week.

Math - Sorting fall items

In our basket, real acorn caps Adrian picked last year, fall colored pompoms, mini foam apples from Michael's and small glittery fall leaves also found at Michael's. Adrian couldn't help but sort the apples by color and pompoms by color as well after the fall items had been put into their individual dish.

Fall Bingo

Freshly printed from Boggles World ESL. Little fall colored gems found at Michael's were used as chips.

Fall Sensory Tub

Sensory tubs always make Adrian happy. Mine was inspiredfrom Counting Coconuts'. Real pinecones, acorn caps, yellow split peas and red kidney beans were used as well as foam apples and some silk leaves. I also provided small plastic tubs and fondue spoons for spooning items. This activity alone lasted 15 minutes. Spooning, sorting, counting, so many things to do with sensory tubs!

Math - Patterning with Fall Items

I cannot remember where I found this grid sheet but it's simply several circles printed in a row. I used colored mini pompoms and gems for this one although only pompoms are pictured here. I would start a colorful pattern (e.g. red, dark green, red, dark green, red...and Adrian would add a dark green pompom to complete the pattern) and ask Adrian to complete it and at the end, to simply reproduce the pattern I made (as seen in this picture).

Roll a Fall Tree Game

Roll a fall tree, as seen on My Montessori Journey, was a big hit. I cut the tree and leaves from felt. I believe the patterns for these are still on MMJ. With the die, Adrian would see what color of leaf to add on the tree (the die number corresponds to the leaf color to add per the instructions found on MMJ). Adrian's favorite number to roll is 6 as it means all the leaves must fall from the tree!

Have fun and don't forget that Fall is coming up September 22!