More Preschool Fall Theme Activities for Teachers

More Preschool Fall Theme
Activities for Teachers of Young Children

Early childhood education ideas and lesson plans that enhance preschool education.
Seasonal curriculum activities for fall, including songs for Fire Safety, Apples, and colorful leaves.
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More! Preschool Fall Activities

Squirrel Counting
Add fun to your early childhood counting curriculum with this preschool activity by Jana M.

Materials: Small dixie cups , squirrel pattern and nuts.

Description: Teachers take a squirrel pattern and staple it to dixie cups. Write a number on each squirrel. Now, have the child count out how many nuts they need for that squirrel. Have a different number on each squirrel. You can also have the child take nuts away from the squirrel, to see how many he has left.

Comments: Some three's I find are not quite ready for this. I find that by the end of the year they're doing it much better.
Take a look at the expanded list of Fall Picture Books

Year 'Round "Seasonal Tree"
Share the ideas of the changing season with children just as Terry H. does.

Materials: Large paper cut out of a tree with bare limbs.
Summer - - green leaves
Fall - - colored leaves
Winter - - Misc. items to be hung on tree (snowmen, mittens, hearts,
Easter eggs)
Spring - - green leaves
Construction paper and tape.

Description: We place a large brown tree with bare limbs on a vacant wall. We begin the school year with green leaves on this tree. Teachers can put children's name on individual leaves. The children enjoy seeing their names placed around the room. I generally put flowers at the base of the tree and a sunshine could be put up over the tree.

FALL: Gradually start changing the green leaves to fall colored leaves. Once they have all changed, have them begin to "fall to the ground" until the tree is bare. We make pumpkins to put under the tree to replace the flowers and at halloween time add faces to these pumpkins.

WINTER: Explaining the seasons to the children, we tell them about summer and fall. Since our tree is now without leaves, during the winter we will add our own "special" things to the tree. We make:

Snowmen in December
Mittens in January
Hearts in February
Easter Eggs in March.

Then the leaves begin to reappear for the spring.

New for this year, we're adding apple blossoms (made from tissue paper) to the tree in September and then change those blossoms to apples. Showing it as a fall apple tree (before we do the color change on the leaves).

Comments: This was a new idea for last year. We are going to use it this year to really discuss the changing seasons and also incorporate our apple lessons.

Fire Safety Song
Try this Fire Safety Song from Valerie W. during Fire Safety Month.

Materials: Song on chart (song is below), dog puppet, white styrofoam cup, googly eyes, construction paper (red, white, black) to make ears, (white construction paper), red tongue, red hat, and black spots.

Description:
1. Using a dog puppet, sing this song to the tune of Popeye the Sailor Man.

Fire Safety
I'm Fire Safety Sam. (ruff, ruff)
I'm Fire Safety Sam. (ruff, ruff)
Please test smoke detectors
'Cause they're home protectors.
I'm Fire Safety Sam. (ruff, ruff)
Substitute lines 3 and 4 with the following words for new verses.
It's important to say..
With matches, don't play.
If there's smoke you should know,
You'd better crawl low.
Have a fire escape plan.
Every family can.
If there's a fire, get out.
Use your escape route.
Go to a neighbor's when alone,
Then call 9-1-1 on the phone.
Clothes on fire? Here's your goal:
First stop, then drop, and roll!
2. Art activity
Make a dalmatian Fire Safety Sam

Using white styrofoam cup inverted, adding eyes, ears, a red tongue, glued on spots and a red hat. They stand on their own and are adorable.

There is an entire Fire Safety Theme in the Rainbow Resource Room.

The Apple Tree
A traditional fingerplay for Fall

Away up high in an apple tree.
    Point up.
Two red apples smiled at me
    Form circles with fingers.
I shook that tree as hard as I could
    Pretend to shake a tree.
Down came those apples.
And mmmmmmm, were they good!
    Rub tummy.

An entire Apple Theme is in the Rainbow Resource Room!

Fall Wreath
This early childhood education activity by Lynn A. begins outdoors with a nature walk and then continues indoors.

Materials: Pine cones, fall leaves in many colors, nuts, acorns, etc. and cardboard or oak tag, and glue.

Description: After going on a nature hike for the above materials, cut a wreath shape out of cardboard. Ask children to decorate their wreath with their own findings. You may want to have them put ribbon on it too.

Comments: This wreath looks so nice when done that it can be kept
all year round.
Take a look at the expanded list of Fall Picture Books

Color Song: Leaves on the Trees
During this Autumn activity preschool children stand in a circle, sing this song and perform actions to the tune of "The Wheels on The Bus".

The leaves on the trees come tumbling down,
Tumbling down, tumbling down.
(Children flutter their hands and fingers down to the floor each time the phrase 'tumbling down' is repeated)
The leaves on the trees come tumbling down,
All over town.
(Children flutter hands down, then turn around)
The leaves on the trees are red red red,
Red red red, red red red,
(Everyone wearing red clothes goes to the middle of the circle and shakes themselves)
The leaves on the trees are red red red,
All over town.
The leaves on the trees are green green green,
Green green green, green green green.
(Everyone wearing green goes to the middle of the circle and shakes)
The leaves on the trees are green green green,
All over town.
Repeat for orange and yellow leaves

Lots of Color Activities are in the Rainbow Resource Room.

Leaf Classification Bar Graph
This preschool education lesson plan begins outdoors, takes advantage of Autumn's colors and encourages young children's classification and sorting skills as they work with concrete materials and compare amounts.

You will need:
Enough large paper bags for half the children in your group, tape, glue/glue stick, craft paper and a felt tip marker

In advance explain to preschool children that they will collect fallen leaves. Remind children not to put leaves off plants, bushes or trees. Only collect the leaves that have fallen on the ground. Encourage young children to use the "buddy system" when collecting (two preschoolers share each collection paper bag). As the children collect leaves teachers use descriptive words, "I see you've found 3 orange leaves" etc.

Back inside the preschool classroom, during small group time, sort the leaves according to color, size or kind. Together with young children count how many of each color, size or kind. Are there more brown leaves than green leaves?

Creating a vertical bar graph will help children compare the leaves according to a classification category such as color etc. On craft paper teachers list the leaf colors. Next ask children to tape or glue leaves in the appropriate color column. Display on children's eye level and refer to the bar graph often during the fall season.

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