Preschool Activities for Fall

Hands on learning for preschool with a fall theme.

Fall Alphabet Activities and Math Games

I've finally comes to terms with the fact that summer is over.  I am definitely enjoying the cooler days.  I cut out these foam leaves weeks ago when it was in the triple digits in the heat of the day, but I didn't have the energy to set up the preschool activities I had in mind until the weather cooled off a bit.  We finally had a cool day last week, and I went outside and set up a leaf hunt for J-Bug (4).  He really thrives on one on one time with me, and he gets so excited when we do hands on learning!  A few of his favorites include ABC eruptions, gross motor math games, and gross motor phonics games.

How to Create an Alphabet Leaf Hunt

This post contains affiliate links. Here is my full disclosure policy.

Supplies:

• craft foam or foam leaves
• sharpie
• clothespins
• counters (any will do)
• milk cap alphabet
• We're Going on a Leaf Hunt (optional)

Before inviting J-Bug outside I hid some leaves throughout the backyard.  I cut the leaves by hand about a month ago.  Of course once I had finished it occurred to me that Michaels or other craft stores would most likely have precut foam leaves.  Oh well!  Then I used a Sharpie to write lowercase letters on all the leaves.  On the other side I wrote the numbers 1-26.  I hung some of the leaves on tree branches using clothespins, and I scattered the rest beneath the trees in our backyard.

J-Bug and I read We're Going on a Leaf Hunt together.  It's one of our favorite books for fall!  He was so excited when I told him that we were going to go on a leaf hunt in our own backyard.

He cracked me up when he said he needed to get his sword in case any of the leaves were up really high in the trees.  He told me he would use his sword to cut them down.  Oh how I love this boy.

Then he got to work finding the leaves.

With each leaf he grabbed he read the letter, said the letter sound, and named the number written on it.

An added bonus for this preschool activity is that opening clothespins builds fine motor skills.

After we had gathered all of the foam leaves we brought them inside.  I had J-Bug choose five.  I held them in my hands, and he picked randomly.  We turned them with the numbers face up.

He used the transparent counters to make the numbers below each leaf.

We only did those five that first day to give him an activity appropriate to his age and attention span.  On another day we will choose another five.  There are so many preschool activities that can be done with the numbered leaves.  He can work on making tally marks, grouping, ordering, one to one correspondence, skip counting, learning odd and even numbers and more math games.

Next we turned all of the letters face up.

I set out our capital milk cap letters.

J-Bug matched the uppercase and lowercase letters by placing the milk cap on the corresponding leaf.

He did the entire alphabet, but I encourage you to work at your child's level and pace.  In early education it's important to establish a love for learning.  I do my best to follow his cues and keep our work appropriate to his pace.  These leaves would also be perfect for putting the alphabet in order, building CVC words, introducing blends and other fun alphabet activities.

More learning with leaves:

• Leafy Outdoor Alphabet Hunt from Teach Mama
• Leaf Counting Game from The Activity Mom
• Felt Leaf Letter Match from No Time for Flashcards

For more hands on preschool activities for fall follow me on Pinterest.

More Hands on Learning Activities for Fall

Apple Tree Word Families ~ Apple Cinnamon Learning Tray ~ Apply Graphing