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Fall Preschool Activities

October 25, 2020 by Jaimi Erickson Leave a Comment

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This collection is a list of my favorite fall preschool activities. I taught these in my preschool classrooms and my children loved them when we did preschool at home.

Fall is my favorite season. We get into nature, explore and learn so much. Seasonal themes are fun activities for preschool because they cover so many subjects. This collection is a list of my favorite fall preschool activities. I taught these in my preschool classrooms and my children loved them when we did preschool at home.

Fall Preschool Activities

This collection is a list of my favorite fall preschool activities. I taught these in my preschool classrooms and my children loved them when we did preschool at home.

Pumpkin Guts

After we get the pumpkins home, we use an extra for playing and exploring pumpkin guts.

Cut a pumpkin open and let your child see what is inside. If you scoop out the insides, place them in a bag, dishpan, or baking dish so your child can get their hands in them.

Children love playing with ‘pumpkin guts’! Be careful with little ones who are still mouthing everything, but they can touch too.

This is one on the list of fall preschool activities that is a sensory activity, a fine motor exercise (using those fingers to pull at the guts and seeds), and a science exploration.

If your children are too young to carve yet, this is a great diversion to keep them occupied while the adults take care of the cutting.

Pumpkin Puzzles

This is a twist on the typical pumpkin carving. Add some puzzles made from pumpkins to your fall preschool activities!

It is so simple and makes a fun pre-math activity for preschool kids. Check it out here.

Seed Estimation

When you play with the pumpkin guts, pick out some seeds and save them to count. Pumpkin seed math activities are a fun, hands-on way to help preschool kids learn numbers and math skills.

You can have your child guess (estimation) how many seeds they think are in the pumpkin. You can then test that hypothesis by counting the pumpkin seeds ones that were saved.

Fall is pumpkin time! Toddler pumpkin activities help kids get hands-on learning experiences that are safe and fun. Includes Preschool pumpkin activities too.

Seed Counting

Use the pumpkin seeds to count.

I shared this pumpkin seed counting activity here. Write numbers 1-5 or 1-10+ on a piece of paper, and glue one seed under ‘1’, two seeds under ‘2’, etc.

Children should understand not only the order of numbers, but the associated amount of each number symbol before going to kindergarten.

Make a leaf collage

With the breeze loosening many leaves from branches, there are leaves to be collected. When we collect leaves, we take them home to make a collage.

Children need to learn how to glue. Starting at around 3 years old you can introduce this. Using white glue, help your child place a dot of glue on a piece of paper for each leaf they collected outside.

I started by squeezing the glue myself where my son pointed on the paper so he could see how much glue I was squeezing out. You can squeeze some glue onto a paper plate and your child can scoop some glue using a craft stick or straw and then dot it on their paper.

So many kids in my preschool classes did not have the skill of “a dab’ll do ya” or “dot, dot, not a lot.” Your child will be gluing galore in school, so teach them the skill with this activity that brings the outdoors indoors.

Here is a great example of a fun leaf collage project at The Imagination Tree.

Leaf Garland

You can also place leaves between sheets of wax paper and iron them in order to laminate the leaves. The Spruce shares multiple ways to preserve Fall leaves here.

Once the leaves are ‘waxed’ you can punch holes and string them to make a garland. How cute will this look across the mantle or along a wall?!

Exploring Mold

For the truly daring, you can put on your ‘Ms. Frizzle’ hat (teacher from The Magic School Bus books) and explore decay. My very patient teacher colleagues put up with me doing this in one of my preschool rooms.

The kids were intrigued by watching a pumpkin decay over time. It was an investment of a couple of weeks total.

How to: Place a pumpkin in a gallon sized zip top bag. Then place the bag into a plastic container or bowl. Observe each day how the pumpkin looks, take pictures, and even make it into a book at the end of the process. (Some great extension and book recommendations are shared at Little Bins for Little Hands.)

Children can observe once a week and journal what they see. This is a way preschool children-who do not yet know how to read-can learn to document. More preschool journaling ideas here.

We often explore how plants grow in the spring, but not often do we touch on decay. It’s interesting to watch. Definitely do not let your child touch the moldy pumpkin without latex gloves on their hands.

Fall is pumpkinn time! Toddler pumpkin activities help kids get hands-on learning experiences that are safe and fun. Includes Preschool pumpkin activities too.

Compare, Contrast and Classify with Gourds

Purchase a few gourds or mini pumpkins for a compare/contrast activity. Discuss with your child the similarities and differences of each.

My twin toddlers had a lot of sensory fun with this gourd activity. They touched them, moved them around, tried to stack them. Even our pug got in on the exploration. 😉

With older kids you can chart the characteristics of the gourds using descriptive words. Just write the adjectives the kids think up on paper. This reinforces writing and reading skills.

Classification is a key skill for future science and math lessons in school. Children love to play ‘guessing games’, so have them study the mini pumpkins and gourds and tell you about them:

You could ask:

What colors/markings are on each?

Which are small or large?

Can you arrange them into groups by size?

Can you line them up from smallest to largest?

Pumpkin Rubbing Art

Try a ‘pumpkin rubbing.’ Lay a piece of paper over the side of a pumpkin. Use the side of a crayon to rub the crayon over the paper. It will reveal the texture of the pumpkin. (Just like a leaf rubbing.)

I love the way this pumpkin texture activity turned out from Buggy and Buddy.

Apple Stamping Art

If you picked some apples while at the farm/orchard, cut one open and paint with it. We cut the apple in half, and then cut one half into quarters, so that a full print and a half print can be made.

Push a plastic fork into the apple pieces as a handle, dip the apple into paint, and stamp it on paper several times.

Dip it back into the paint as needed to achieve a good print. After the painting dries, your child can add painted or drawn stems and leaves, if desired.

You can extend this by using other items to stamp such as celery stalks, corn on the cob (roll the cob) or acorn squash. Lots of good sensory and art fun with this idea! You can see how Fun-A-Day shares the process of apple printing for kids here.

Pretend Play with Autumn Theme

At your local craft store find autumn-colored leaves on a stem, plastic pumpkins, and wood letters that spell Fall. Add some large toy trucks like these or a toy wheelbarrow and you have a fun pretend play area for Fall!

I have placed these items in a bin in our playroom. It adds a new element that is seasonal.

My kids liked matching the leaves by colors. They would pile them up based on which leaves are only red, which have red and orange, and which have red, orange and yellow.

Playing pumpkin farm or nature walk indoors is a great indoor activity when it is raining outside.

Let your child use their imagination with some indoor-friendly objects of Fall.

Fall preschool activities nature walk, leaf hunt, leaf collage and more.

Nature Walk

Fall is a great time of year to walk around your neighborhood, state park, or local wooded area to look at all the colors and critters! Playgrounds and outdoor areas are always great activities.

Pick up some leaves for a collage or leaf garland, talk about what colors you see, look for animals, acorns, trees that stay green, etc. It is one of the easiest Fall preschool activities.

Nature is science and exploration is learning.

Learning Games with Homemade Apple Trees

These were so easy to make. Older kids can help as an art project. We used these DIY toy apple trees for math, abc matching and pretend play. A great Fall recycled craft that has many uses for learning and play.

9 Halloween Activities and Crafts for Toddlers and Up

This list brings back so many memories! My kiddos were so little then, but they still have fun playing with these Halloween hands-on crafts.

Which Fall preschool activities are your favorites for exploring Fall with your children?

Fall preschool activities for learning and play at home.

Successful Mom Daily Checklist to help you gain balance between housework and play time with the kids. Get more done, and feel more successful as a mom and homemaker.

Enjoy your time at home!

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I pictured myself as a mom of boys before having m I pictured myself as a mom of boys before having my babies. I have learned so much from all my children but having my girls is a blessing I never knew I needed. 

Want to eliminate mean girls? Raise daughters to do the opposite.

Want to teach women to better communicate with each other? Raise daughters to listen and articulate.

They are my own little girl group and I am grateful for it. They love me on my bad days and give me compliments I do not even deserve. 

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Will you be spending time with family for Easter? Will you be spending time with family for Easter? 

My husband’s parents have arrived - adding one more big dog to our house and lots of crafts and fun. We have not seen them since June. Everyone is excited to spend time together.

Both of my big kids have birthdays and we will all get to spend time at the beach this month. Our school work will morph into field trips so we soak up every day we can being present with family. 

I am looking forward to making memories, soaking in time together and celebrating two milestone birthdays - one happening tomorrow. 💛 

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🌟The faces we make when a Costco run with all t 🌟The faces we make when a Costco run with all the kids actually goes well!!! 🌟 

Ice cream after helped of course. 😂

All prepped for my in-laws coming to visit us after not seeing them since our move last summer. Looking forward to some fun events ahead that will make my kids think they are on spring break but they will technically be field trip days. Check, check. 

Are you guys on spring break this week? What do you have planned?

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Some days you put on the 10 year old comfy jeans, Some days you put on the 10 year old comfy jeans, fill your mind with encouragement and just keep moving forward. 

Recovery days are not just for working out. They are for the mental state we walk around with too. Yesterday felt heavy. My God is a power lifter and takes the burden away. 

Today will be better.

Today we will rest and refocus.

Hooray for comfy jeans, motivational graphics and the Word to focus on through it all. 

(Faith fashion: @choseninchrist use code Jaimi to save.)

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🌟That Face!!🌟 That little boy is soon to t 🌟That Face!!🌟 

That little boy is soon to turn 13, guys! I mean in a few weeks. 😅

This is a throwback but brings back so many fun memories. 

—————————————

I love creating activities and crafts on the fly. Always have even before my kids were here.

I noticed that my son did not have a lot of little toy people to play with while he was pretending one day. We have a few cylinder blocks in a set. We never used them when we built. I thought we could turn them into little DIY toy people. 

They were so cute and easy to make. It was a preschool art project for him. We made them together.

If you don’t have wooden cylindrical blocks at home, you can use pieces of wood dowel or even a few square blocks glued together. You can even make DIY toy people out of toilet paper tubes. 

🌟Full details through Blog link in bio 🌟

——————————————

I am so excited and yet in complete shock by how fast these little lives grow. I have never missed moments and I am so so grateful especially as we approach the teen years in my house. 💛 Soak up even the hard days of being a mom. TOTALLY worth it. 

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👌 There are a lot of parenting opinions out the 👌 There are a lot of parenting opinions out there. I try to ignore a lot of them. 😂 

My kids stay up later than most recommend, but so did I when I was a kid. 

She loves to read. She loves to write. Abby writes plays, journal entries, songs and on a bad day she will write her feelings about it all, in depth, no holds barred. 

This night she was trying to finish up a play - setting, character details, order of lines - for a play she made for her younger sister. 

I am so thankful that we can count her love of writing in her free time as school work. I am so thankful that how we do school allows this passion and talent to thrive. She has stacks of drawings, plays and writing blurbs. They are all precious to her.

There are days I question whether this choice or that choice is right or “approved,” but it does not matter when I see my children dive deep into the things they love. 

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Give me my people any day. Family time this Sund Give me my people any day. 

Family time this Sunday was a 5k fundraiser race. We helped raise 💵 for the spouses’ club scholarship fund. Scholarships will be awarded for post secondary education to military kids and spouses. 

If you can choose any action in life, choose to help others. Side bonus when it involves fun family time together.

Best day yet. 💛💛💛

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💛 Friday Introductions💛 It has been a while 💛 Friday Introductions💛

It has been a while since I did a good run-down here to give ya the cliffs notes (are those still a thing) version of me. 👋 

💛 Detroit-born a few blocks from where Eminem lived. The city is still my hometown despite moving away as a kid.

💛 I am a big believer in traditional values, but with a modern woman twist. My husband drives his career and I drive this household.

💛 We live in eastern NC 30 mins from the beach. I want to stay here forever, truly, but military life will come to an end some day...still don’t know specifically when that will be.

💛Born and raised to be a planner, Type A personality, having 4 kids beat that out of me 🤣 and I am very “day at a time” now. 

💛I was a teacher turned stay at home mom turned blogger turned entrepreneur that had to set it all on the back burner a bit to focus on homeschooling my kids. I can only have so much on my plate and complete it successfully. (When we listen, God guides and is loud and clear with His direction. 💛)

💛I believe I can be humble and confident; I can be fully present with my kids and make space to rest and rejuvenate; I believe the biggest successes I will achieve in life will not have a paycheck as its valuation. 

💛I believe that true peace, value and love all come from Jesus. 

You will find me sharing the ups AND the downs of motherhood, wife life, homeschooling and being a Christian woman with the modern day pull to fight what that can mean. (There is def a force trying to convince us to push those values aside, my friends.)

👌What is the cliffs notes version of you? What do you want people to know/realize most of all?

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🌟Teaching Kids to Make Friends🌟 Often our c 🌟Teaching Kids to Make Friends🌟

Often our children learn hard lessons when they have to move to a new state or school. 

My kids have become all too familiar with this through military life. Every three years they have to make new friends.

It is not always simple.

As a child, my family moved a lot. We were not military, but in junior high I moved to a new state and had to make all new friends.

This was a challenging and even to some extent a traumatic time of life.

Being the new kid, is a humbling experience. Suddenly you are hoping that your peers will want to get to know you and like you. It creates some self-consciousness.

Reading is such a beneficial way to teach children about life lessons. It teaches much more than that. It teaches self esteem through the cuddle time. It teaches language skills, and it teaches children to use their minds to be creative.

As they have grown and navigated more friendships, books are a resource for us to discuss tough challenges. I have found a great series of books that present friendship challenges and help children learn to navigate them.

It just so happens that the author is my neighbor too! How cool is that?! Moms are amazing.

These books will be treasured by your family for their quality values. The @stingrayjelly series teach children how to make friends and navigate friendships to love others well and support them through shared similarities and recognized differences.

Author, Lauren Giannella is a military wife and my neighbor! Anna Perdue is the illustrator and also a military child. 

Read my blog post for details on each book and links to purchase through @barnesandnoble 

We love our military community and all they do to give back.

What are your favorite children’s books that teach children how to make friends or help them maneuver through tough life challenges?

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