tot school: 11 fall activity ideas

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Fall is our favorite season.  We have had so much fun with leaves and pumpkins and I want to share all that we have been doing in Tot School these last few weeks!  Can you believe we still haven’t “officially” carved a pumpkin?  We plan to do that this week!

This idea is from Angela at Teaching Mama.  Check out her post for the details on how to make these — her pumpkins turned out better than ours.  We never brought them inside, which is fine with us.  John had so much fun with the orange shaving cream.  He had to bring his trucks out and played for at least an hour!

We love hammering golf tees.  This is such a great fine motor and concentration activity.  May joined in with her own little hammer too ♥

We collected leaves on the nature trail and had to use them for some art activities!  I downloaded a simple tree picture, and simply glued on the leaves.

I set this Fall Coloring Book from Carisa at 1+1+1=1 out on John’s little table with crayons.  He only went to it when I asked him to — he isn’t the coloring-type.  But he really liked the pumpkin pages :)

Another fun hands-on activity to set out for children to do on their own :)  I found our leaf stamps in the dollar bin at Michael’s.

Deborah at Teach Preschool had a post about making leaf men.  I decided this was perfect for our huge leaf collection.  We didn’t “draw” very  much on our projects, but we did discuss body parts — a head, body, arms and legs!  John absolutely loved these and wanted to make two!  This was especially fun because my sister was in town and joined in the fun.

There are so many amazing free resources available.  My favorite Fall packs this year were from This Reading Mama and Mamas Monkeys!  Check them out!!  We cut strips, made a book, made a pumpkin with pasted words, and did some size sorting and puzzles!

Super easy pumpkin made with a painted paper plate.  I cut some shapes out and discussed them as we were building our Jack O Lantern :)  He wanted to make more so I cut out some orange paper circles and we drew more faces.

This is an amazing idea from Fun-A-Day.  Check out her post on the details for this negative space art.  John loved his hand traced and wanted to do both hands!  We used his play sponge for the paint and he loved that too.  I also gave him a nylon filled with rice which he enjoyed as well.  I’ll have to remember to use these tools, instead of brushes, because he seemed to like them a lot more!

Karyn at Teach Beside Me made these wonderful pumpkin templates for making faces out of felt!  I had orange and black felt already, so this was an easy activity to make!  John loved making the faces and did very well.  {Of course the sword was needed to stop any bad guys.}

Super cute and easy tree made of brown paint with q-tip leaves! John liked this, but got a bit carried away and soon, as always, colors on his whole page.  I have to take away his projects before he “ruins” them because he is disappointed when he stops to think about what he is doing.  I love how he made the leaves “fall!”

Super fun and easy.  Put a mat down, give them some bowls and spoons, and this play lasted over an hour!  May loved being part of this activity.  And John was {mostly } gracious in letting her play, too.

All of our work for the week on our back window.  John loves looking at his work!  His favorite project was definitely the leaf men :)  {Below the handprints are May’s sweet handprints, so she got to do her first painting project — I think I will making baby-safe finger paint soon!}

You can also check out our free 30 Leaf Identification Cards!

And our Fall Sensory Bin with Pumpkin Play Dough!