Fall is always exciting in my classroom! Students are excited and interested in all the changes that are occurring outside (not to mention that Halloween is just around the corner). The fall season is the perfect time to practice fine motor skills, fall crafts, and problem-solving skills with young children. Plus, pumpkin spice and everything nice! I want to share with you some of my students’ favorite fall activities.
Want the fall printables? Find them here. Fall Math and Literacy Centers, Fall STEM I Can Build pack, & Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play
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Fall Activities for Literacy
Leaf Letter Match! Grab some fake leaves and clothespins to make this fun leaf letter match game. Students can match capital to capital, capital to lowercase, or lowercase to lower case letters. If your students aren’t ready for the whole alphabet, just set out part of them at a time (A-L, M-Z). This is a great way for your students to practice letter identification.
Fall Letter Dot It! Yes, please! My students love anything with dot-it markers. So I made this cute FREE Fall Letter Dot It with uppercase letters and one with lowercase letters for the library center. I also used it as a table time activity for a fun way to start the day.
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Fall Letter & Sound Match! The letter & beginning sound match game is one of the best fall activities in the classroom. Students will match the capital, lowercase, and beginning sound pictures to complete the activity.
Fall Writing Tray! A fall salt writing tray is a hands-on way to practice letters, numbers, and shapes. It’s super simple to set up, too. I just grabbed some salt, dyed it orange, let it dry, and put it on a tray. You can also use colored sand in your writing tray too. Students pick a leaf letter, write it in the tray, and shake it to erase it.
Check out this post for step-by-step directions on how to dye salt.
Fall Sight Word Writing Tray! For my kinder teachers, do this activity with sight words instead of letters! Your students will be excited to write their sight words in the salt tray. What a fun way to practice sight words during the autumn season!
You can find the trays HERE. A lacing set came in these beautiful wooden trays.
Fall Writing Center! My fall writing center has colorful fall-themed paper, fall vocabulary cards, fall dot-it markers, and fall stickers. The vocabulary cards spark their memories and get kids talking, writing, and drawing about fall.
Fall Vocabulary Words! Use the fall word cards and letter beads for more fall activities. I had the students string the letter beads on pipe cleaners that were attached to fake flowers.
Leaf Name Collages! Name collages are always a hit with my students! We make name collages with almost everything you can think of. Students crumbled up leaves to create their name collage. Grab these FREE editable name cards HERE.
Fall Compound Words! There are so many great compound words (scarecrow, sunflower, football) that relate to fall, so I just had to create some Fall Compound Word Puzzles.
Fall Book List! My bookshelf changes with each new theme. I just love to see students get excited when I put new books for the new theme on the shelf! It’s Pumpkin Time and Going on a Left Hunt are my favorite fall books to read at circle time.
Fall activities for Math
Leaf Roll, Count, & Sort! I made this butcher paper math activity, and my students loved it! I drew some leaves in different colors. Then, I gave students small manipulatives like stackable counters, mini pumpkins, and leaf decor. They rolled a die and placed that many manipulatives in the leaves. My students sorted by colors, but that isn’t necessary for the activity to work. Grab the butcher paper activity guide to get more butcher paper fall activities.
Fall Roll & Count! Students will roll a die and use tweezers to count out that many fake leaves. To make it harder, give them 2 dice and have students practice informal addition.
Fall Cover Up! Fall number lineup combines number identification, counting, matching, and one-to-one correspondence all into one activity. First, students made a number line with the Fall Number Cards. Then, they counted out and matched various math and fall manipulatives with the number.
We used real pumpkin seeds as counters to play Fall Cover Up. I put out boards with one ten frame for my younger students and boards with two ten frames for my older students.
Fall Numbers Sensory Bin! Place number cards into a sensory bin of fake leaves. Then students will pull out number matches and count out that many linking cubes.
Fall Number Lines! For number identification and formation practice these Fall Trace the Number boards are perfect. Students trace the number with a dry-erase marker. For my older students who needed more of a challenge, I put out Fall Fill in the Number boards.
Fall Spin & Graph! Practice graphing skills with your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten students with these fun fall activities. Make a spinner by placing a clear spinner on top or use a paperclip and a pencil. Students will spin the spinner and graph the results. You can talk about more than, less than, and equal to with your students.
Leaf Puzzles! I grabbed these leaf front door decorations from the dollar store and used them as templates for my students to practice spatial awareness. They used pattern blocks to try and cover the leaves.
2D Shape Pumpkin Patch Match! These give students the opportunity to practice identifying 2D shapes and drawing them. Students pick a card, identify the shape, and trace the corresponding shape on their board.
Fall Color Counting & Sorting! Make the color sorting a little tougher by adding a die. Students will roll the die and sort that many fall manipulatives onto the laminated tissue paper leaves. Add tweezers for even more fine motor development.
Fall Activities for Science, Blocks, & Stem
Trees & Leaves Science Unit! Set up a science table all about autumn leaves and trees for your little learners! They will love exploring the parts of a tree, touching different nature items, and learning new science vocabulary. If you are wondering… I did laminate the leaves! I think I would laminate everything if I could! This is a wonderful way to keep your leaves each year, especially if you don’t live in an area that has a lot of leaves.
Fall STEM Props! If you have a small classroom, try using STEM drawers to hold the building materials and place the fall building props on top. Grab the STEM I Can Build Fall Posters here. The pumpkins are those candy corn pumpkins.
Fall Blocks Center! You can’t forget to add some fall props to your blocks center. I added tractors, fake leaves, pumpkins (orange pom poms), apples (red pom poms), fall books, and hay bales (blocks covered in yellow paper. Along the top are the Fall STEM I Can Build posters to give your students an idea of what to build.
Build a Fall Tree! This simple open-ended art activity is a great fall project for little learners. The tree trunk is cut from brown foam. Then, I laid out green glass beads and acrylic acorns and leaves. This is a fun way to add new colors to your kids’ activities on the light table.Â
Fall Activities for Sensory & Art
Fall Play Dough Tray! How inviting does this fall Play-Doh exploration look? Students made fall cookies with the fall cookie cutters and pressed the fake leaves into the playdoh creating leaf prints. They created all kinds of designs and sculptures using the acorns, pumpkin gems, and leaf gems. I found those in the Target Dollar Spot a few years ago. It was a fun activity to strengthen those little hands and wrists. I always try to put a new play dough exploration out in my art center for every theme we do.
Fall Sensory Idea! Make some dyed rice in fall colors and throw in some leaves, rakes, tree trunks, shovels, and letters. Check out this post on how I make dyed rice. I set up a special place for sensory play and it is one of my students’ favorite places in the classroom.
Fall Color Mixing! Color code cups and droppers because the liquid watercolor paint looks the same in the cups (use tape if you only have plain droppers). Students use the droppers to drop color onto a paper towel or coffee filters. The color spreads and blends together to create a beautiful fall color collage.
Fall Tree Prints! And it’s not fall unless you create fall hand (arm) print trees. Students used their fingers to make the leaves on their trees. This is a fall, fun finger paint activity that your students will love.
Fall Paint Blowing! Where I live, the wind is crazy in the fall. Students used straws to blow the paint like the wind blows the leaves off the trees. It was a fun oral motor activity. Just make sure each student has his or her own straw to use. MAKE SURE YOU WATER DOWN THE PAINT or use liquid watercolor.
Acorn Rolling Painting! Tape a piece of construction paper inside a box lid. Put some acorns in cups of paint and give students a spoon to scoop them out. Place them on the paper and roll them around. The paint spreads over the paper while students build muscles in their arms and core.
Sunflower Still Life! Use real or fake sunflowers and place them in a vase in the middle of the table. Students will observe and draw/paint what they see. This is a great art activity to talk about the different shapes that make up items to simplify trying to draw them. The middle is a brown circle; add yellow ovals for petals; some petals are pointy, etc.
Fall Activities for the Dramatic Play Area
Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play! In the dramatic play center, we created a Pumpkin Patch (read all about how to set it up here). Students made most of the props for our pumpkin patch. They crumbled up paper to make the leaves on the tree, twisted paper to make the vines, painted the corn maze, created the hay bales for the stand out of boxes, and made the pumpkins out of paper bags. This is a great idea for fall, but you could also check out my apple orchard dramatic play area.
I just love fall, and these fall activities are sure to be a hit in your classroom! There are some for every area in your room and your little learners will enjoy learning and playing! Grab your lesson plans and get busy planning your fall theme.
If you need Fall Books, I’ve got a list of my favorite fall books HERE.
If you want the favorite fall activities from this post, grab my Fall Math and Literacy Centers pack. It is loaded with tons of math and literacy centers all about fall, leaves, apples, and pumpkins.
If you want to change your dramatic play center into a pumpkin patch, grab my Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play pack. I did all the hard work for you. It has directions, printables, and tons of classroom photos to help you set up your own pumpkin patch.
Grab some beautiful Fall, School, Halloween and Thanksgiving STEM I Can Build challenge posters (with real photographs) for the blocks, science and STEM center!
Want to see these fall activities in action? Check out the video here.
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I’m Jackie, your go-to girl for early childhood inspiration and research-based curriculum.