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Fall Leaves Preschool Theme
For Your Preschool ClassroomFall Leaves Preschool Theme! There are so many activities available to teach so many concepts! This theme page is filled with preschool lesson plans, activities and ideas for your classroom.
This theme is related to other theme pages such as pumpkins and apples! You will find links below to go to those specific pages for more activities!
You'll find more themes to help you with your planning on my preschool themes page.
Let The Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Planning Begin!
You can either scroll down through this page to see all of the preschool activities for your theme or click the link below to go to specific preschool activity types you are looking for.
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Art Activities
Hand Print Leaves
Materials Needed: finger paint in fall colors, paper
Show the children how to dip their hands lightly into a shallow tray of paint and then press their hands on the paper.
Repeat over and over for a beautiful foliage collage of hand print leaves!
Leaf Printing
Materials Needed: Fall colored leaves; paint in fall colors; brushes; paper
Children paint the leaves.
Show them how to turn them upside-down and press onto the paper.
If only a thin layer of paint is put on, they will see the veins of the leaves on their prints as well!
Leaf Windsock
Materials: Large quantity of fall leaves (perhaps from a walk outside with the children!); large construction paper, glue sticks, crepe paper
Have the children glue leaves all over their papers. Encourage them to make designs or patterns!
Laminate the papers. Roll them into long cylinder shapes. Hole punch a hole on the topsides.
Help the children to lace yarn though the two holes you punched on the top. This will be used to hang their Wind Socks.
Help the children to staple crepe paper to the bottom end.
Hang in the classroom or outside!
Paper Towel Leaves
Materials: paper towels (or coffee filters) cut into leaf shapes; markers; eye droppers and water or a spray bottle with water.
Have the children color their leaf shapes with any or all colors.
When done, have them spray (or use eye droppers with water) the shapes.
The colors spread and look beautiful!
Place them on newspaper to dry--the marker will bleed through and stain a table--I'm just sayin'! If this does happen, Germ-X or Purell get marker off tables pretty well! ;)
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Block Area
Leaves, Leaves Everywhere!
Add fall colored leaves, grass (or the plastic Easter grass) and forks. The children can add a fall hint to their structures and then use the plastic forks to rake their leaves!
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Circle Time Activities
Circle Time is such a great time for children to learn the social skills of being together as a large group AND to learn more about your theme!
5 Little Leaves Finger play
5 Little leaves so bright today.
Were dancing about on the tree to play.
The wind came blowing through the town,
And one little leaf came falling down.
Continue with 4, 3, 2 and then 1.
Use felt or real leaves to demonstrate on a flannel board!
Cooking Ideas for your Fall Leaves Preschool Theme
Cooking with children helps develop their math skills and helps them to learn how to follow directions. It also allows for some great conversation! Ask many questions while cooking with your children to encourage conversation! Be sure to ask specific themed questions while making these fun snacks!
Leaf Toast Thank you Cheryl W. for this idea!
We take white bread (slightly stale is best) and use cookie cutters to make leaf shapes. We then "paint" the bread with fall colors (food coloring mixed into a little half & half) try not to use too much "paint" as it will get too soggy. We then take the leaves to the oven and bake them slightly to dry out some of the milk.
Always a huge hit and we get asked for the recipe from our Moms!
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Ideas
to Transform Your Dramatic Play AreaFarm Stand
Add apples, pumpkins and other fall items (real or play-food!) as well as a cash register and paper bags for customers!
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Ideas For Your Easel
More Than Just Painting (Although that is always THE favorite in our classroom!)
Leaf Painting
Try using leaves or branches to paint with instead of brushes!
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Large Group Games
To Help Your Preschoolers Build Their Muscles
While They Have Fun Together!Leaf Twister Game
Tape pre-cut fall colored leaves all around the floor. (Have many!)
Place duplicates of these leaves in a bag. Pull one out and instruct the children on how they are to touch that leaf (again, have many of each type of leaf on the floor).
"Put your hand on a red leaf"
"Hop on one foot on a yellow leaf"
"Sit on a green leaf"
Leaf Toss Parachute Game
Use a large bed sheet or a parachute. Place leaves (real, paper or fabric) in the middle and have the children lift the sheet/parachute slowly up and down to see the leaves float. Try shaking until all the leaves are off!
Rake the Leaves Thank you, Karen, for submitting this idea!
One is the rake and he must run around and "rake" (or catch) the leaves. When he tags a leaf it sticks to his "rake" or hand and now the two run after and catch the other leaves one by one. It gets funny when a herd of kids are running after the other loose "leaves". When all the "Leaves are caught another "Rake" takes over. I showed them beforehand how to rake leaves and they all get in a group with the rake and stick together. This way there is more running of everyone and they stick together by holding hands (sometimes) or just running in a group together.
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Ideas for Your Library
Book Suggestions for the Library
(I LOVE Amazon, and some of the links below will take you to the Amazon website. If you do choose to purchase yours through Amazon, they do send me a few cents--which supports my coffee habit! )
Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins
Fall Leaves: Colorful and Crunchy (Cloverleaf Books - Fall's Here!) by Martha E. H. Rustad and Amanda Enright
Fall Leaves (My First Hello Reader) by Mary Packard
H.D.Y.K. It's Fall? Pbk (Rookie Read-About Science) by Allan Fowler
Leaves Fall Down: Learning About Autumn Leaves by Lisa Bullard and Nadine Takvorian
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
The Leaves Fall All Around (Rookie Preschool: My First Rookie Reader) by Steve Mack
When Autumn Comes by Robert Maass
Why Do Leaves Change Color? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2) by Betsy MaestroFall Leaves Preschool Theme Ideas
To Help Your Preschoolers Develop Their Math Skills and the Small Muscles in Their HandsLeaf Matching
Materials: Precut (and laminate so you can use them each year) pairs of leaves--use different colors, sizes, etc.
The children can match the pairs; sort by color; sort by size; identify colors by pointing, etc.
Number Matching
Materials: Program pairs of paper leaves for different matching games.
Match the leaf with a numeral "1" on it to a leaf with ONE smiley face on it.
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Music and Movement Activities
to Get Your Preschoolers Movin' and Groovin'!Dance like the Leaves Thank you Olivia for this idea!
Play different tempos of music and tell the children they need to fall to the beat of the music, like leaves.
Addition to this activity: Give children a paper leaf to hold, ask them to move around the room to the music and pretend that they are leaves blowing in the wind. Find a song with various tempos so they can practice their awareness of how music changes.
Sand and Water Table Ideas for Your Fall Leaves Preschool Theme!
Leaf Raking
Add leaves, twigs and grass to your sand table along with plastic diggers and forks to rake the leaves out of the way!
Fall Leaves Preschool Theme Science Ideas
For Your Preschool Scientists in Training!Leaves We See
Materials: Place the different types of leaves, twigs and branches that are in your area during Autumn into or on your science table with magnifying glasses for the children to observe.
Provide paper and markers or crayons for the children to draw what they observe!
Clay Leaf Fossils
Materials: Using your own recipe for plain colored playdough or clay (that you can bake), give each child a portion of it.
Have them roll out the clay and then place leaves and twigs on it.
Roll over the leaves with a roller.
Remove leaves and twigs.
Bake and when cool, let the children paint with fall colored tempera paint.
Writing Activity Ideas for Your Fall Leaves Preschool Theme!
Leaf Letter Match
Materials: Program pairs of paper leaves for different matching games.
Match the leaf with the letter "A" on it to the leaf with the letter "a" on it.
or, make matching pairs to match capital letters with capital letters.
Use the letters to spell out your name!
Go to the MAIN THEMES Page for more Theme Ideas!
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Hey there! Welcome to Preschool Plan It! I’m Cheryl, a preschool teacher of over 20 years.
I KNOW, I know, you spend hours of time developing your preschool themes, activities and preschool lesson plans each week. You are commited to planning preschool themes and activities that are engaging hands-on, interactive, fun AND meet the goal of supporting each child’s level of growth and development.
I am commited to providing you, the preschool teacher, with everything you need to develop preschool lesson plans and preschool activities for your classroom all in one place!
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