I began homeschool preschooling my boys in 2020 and we’ve loved it ever since!
Besides our regular preschool curriculum (you can find my Ultimate 3-Year Homeschool Preschool Plan here), we love celebrating holidays as part of our school. But last year I noticed a big gap in my boys’ preschool learning, and that was about seasons! We’d done a lot of holiday activities and learned all about the big-name holidays and their purpose, but I was rather surprised when my four-year-old asked, “What does autumn mean?”
How on earth had we learned about Halloween and Thanksgiving, but not actual autumn?
So I began adding seasonal preschool units alongside our holiday ones and we took a week for each season out of our regular preschool curriculum to learn about autumn, winter, and spring.
My boys absolutely loved it. These special seasonal weeks were a huge hit and we had a blast. When this year rolled around and I said that summer was ending and it was almost autumn, instead of being met with questions, I was met with cheers. Hooray! Because they know that autumn time means not only Halloween and Thanksgiving, but also an entire week of super fun learning about autumn.
This autumn preschool unit is super easy to insert into your regular letter-of-the-week preschool curriculum. We simply paused our letter during the week of the first day of autumn, studied autumn for a week, and then resumed the next letter the following week. These super fun seasonal and holiday units also help break up a bit of the monotony and they add exciting breaks every few months.
This year in 2022, the first day of autumn is on September 22, so we’ll focus on fall for that Monday through Friday the 19th-23rd.
So if you’re looking for fun ideas for teaching your preschooler about autumn, then here you go!
Acorn Number Line Game
Materials:
- Acorn cards numbered 1-30 (see link below)
- A squirrel clipart cutout
- Wall tape
- Dice
This was a really fun game that we played daily immediately after we finished our calendar time.
First, tape your numbered acorns on the wall to make a number line. I got my free, printable numbered acorn (and leaf) cards from this website:
Fall Numbered Acorns and Leaves Printables Link
These numbered cards are meant to use in a pocket calendar, which I indeed used them for during October and November (which my boys got a big kick out of), but in September I used them for these Autumn Preschool activities. I also laminated them to make them extra durable.
Explain how squirrels (and other animals) have to store up a lot of food for the winter and that this counting game will help our squirrel cutout gather his acorns. See how many acorns he can get before winter!
Every day, let each of your preschoolers take a turn to roll the dice and move your squirrel cutout (with tape on the back) up that number on your acorn number line.
But there’s a catch! Sometimes the squirrel is naughty and eats the acorns instead of saving them. Mom (or whatever chosen adult is running your preschool) then gets a turn to roll the dice, but she has to move the squirrel backward on the number line to represent losing acorns instead of gaining them.
Continue this game every day until the end of the week and see if your squirrel managed to save more acorns than he ate. My boys absolutely loved this game and they thought it was hilarious every time Mom got to be the “naughty” squirrel. It’s also a really basic introduction to the good math concepts of both addition and subtraction.
Bake Pumpkin Bread
Baking and cooking are great activities for preschoolers. Not only does it introduce a great life skill, but is good early math skills too. Plus you get to eat delicious treats afterwards!
I absolutely loved pumpkin-flavored baked goods, so pick your favorite pumpkin recipe, be it bread, muffins, bars, or cookies. Wow, this is making me hungry for pumpkin treats.
If you don’t like pumpkin flavor (what’s the matter with you!?) then you can switch this up and bake an apple-themed treat instead, which is also very fall-ish, such as apple pie or apple crisp. To each his own.
Feed the Squirrel Counting Game
Materials:
- Ten squirrel clipart cutouts numbered 1-10
- Ten paper or plastic cups (bowls work too)
- Tape
- Acorns (or another counting object; we found and gathered real acorns on a hike last year which I’ve kept in a baggie for activities like this. But you can use whatever counting object you have: pom poms, pennies, toothpicks, or even acorn pictures that you print and cut out yourself)
Tape each numbered squirrel onto a cup. Count out the correct number of acorns and put them into the matching cup. Which cup has the most? Which cup has the least?
Go on a Canyon Drive or Hike
We are blessed to live close to the Rocky Mountains and so we love going up the canyon, and the fall time is a particularly beautiful time for a canyon drive.
You might need to time this carefully, because depending on your location the trees might not be changing enough come the very first day of fall to make this canyon visit really worth it; if it happens a week or so after you finish your unit, that’s still fine.
Specifically tell your preschoolers to look for signs of fall throughout your adventure (which most notably should be the leaves changing colors). Even if it doesn’t work out for you to go up the canyon, you can still remind your preschoolers to look for signs of fall around the town as you drive around for your regular errands. Especially as the weeks go on, make an effort to point out colorful and empty trees wherever you go, and your preschooler will enjoy pointing them out to you too.
Graph Autumn-Colored Leaf Hole Punches
Materials:
- A leaf-shaped hole punch
- Fall-colored construction paper (red, orange, yellow, brown, green)
- White construction paper
- Glue stick
Beforehand, make a bunch of leaf hole punches from the fall-colored construction paper. Draw five columns on the white construction paper and label them with those colors.
Have your preschooler pick 10-20 leaves (depending on how long their attention is kept) and sort them by color. Glue them into their correct columns. Which column has the most? The least?
Numbered Leaf Hunt
Materials:
- Leaf cards numbered 1-30 (see the above activity with the numbered acorn cards; I use this same free printable for my numbered leaves, also printed and laminated. But you could easily print, cut out, and number your own leaf pictures. Here’s the link again: Fall Numbered Acorns and Leaves Printables Link)
Hide the numbered leaves around the room. Have your preschooler go on a leaf hunt to collect the leaves. Arrange them in the correct number order 1-30.
Make Leaf Sunlight Catchers
Materials:
- Orange construction paper
- Clear contact paper
- Fall-colored tissue paper (red, orange, and yellow)
- Laminating machine
Print a leaf outline onto the orange construction paper. Cut it out and cut out the interior as well, leaving an outline roughly an inch wide. Lay the leaf outline onto the sticky side of the clear contact paper.
Rip or cut the tissue paper into small pieces. Have your preschooler press the tissue paper against the sticky contact paper and fill the interior of the leaf outline.
Laminate the entire thing (if you don’t have a laminating machine, you can also cover the exposed craft with another layer of contact paper, but in my opinion laminating it just makes it look a million times better). Cut out the leaf and hang it in your window to see the sunlight catch the pretty fall colors.
Leaf Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Match Game
Materials:
- 52 Leaf cutouts (or hole punches, if you have a hole punch large enough to write on the leaves. Otherwise you can print and cutout leaves)
- Sharpie marker
Write the uppercase and lowercase alphabet on your leaf cutouts. Set out the uppercase letters in alphabetical order on the table. Mix up the lowercase letters. Have your preschooler sort the lowercase letters and match them to the uppercase letters.
Variations: if matching upper- and lowercase letters is beyond your preschooler’s abilities, try a few variations of this game. You can use just the capital letters and let your preschooler arrange them in alphabetical order. Or you can write the letters for your preschooler’s name on the leaves and glue them onto a piece of paper in order to correctly spell his/her name. We played both these variations before actually matching the upper- and lowercase letters.
Painting Leaves Art
Materials:
- A collection of leaves (you can collect them from your own yard or even on that hike you went on. Or if it’s still too early in the season for leaf collecting, you can go to the craft store and buy a variety of fake leaves)
- White construction paper
- Washable paint (in fall colors such as red, orange, and yellow)
Paint an entire side of your leaf. Turn it over onto your white construction paper and press it down like a stamp. Carefully peel it up to reveal the leaf print. Repeat with various leaves and colors until your page is full.
Note: this activity works better for older preschoolers. My boys were five, three, and two when we did this activity. My oldest (who was in kindergarten by then) loved it. He caught on really quickly and after I showed him how and he did the entire thing almost completely independently without a problem.
My three-year-old, however, didn’t have quite the motor skills for this and needed my hands-on help for every single leaf print that we made. He kept accidentally smearing the leaves around when we pressed them and then got frustrated a few times that the resulting stamps didn’t look as neat as his older brother’s did. But it all turned out right in the end, just with a lot of his mama’s help.
As for my two-year-old, he happily followed the beat of his own drum and used his leaves like paintbrushes, dipping them in the paint and smearing them across his paper to his heart’s content. He loved it.
Play Autumn Bingo
My boys love Bingo and this is a link to a super cute, free printable for autumn Bingo.
Besides the fun of playing a Bingo game, this is a great opportunity to talk about some typical signs of fall, from pumpkins to leaves to candied apples.
