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Apple Sensory Activities for Kids

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The smell of apples and apple pie spice is just one of those things that reminds you that fall is coming (if it isn’t already here, which it won’t be for quite some time where I live). If apple picking isn’t on your agenda this year, or you just want to bring some apple themed sensory activities into the home or classroom, read on.

Views from a Stepstool has a recipe for apple pie spice cloud dough, and now I’m wondering why I never made scented cloud dough when my daughter was playing with it. (The recipe we used had baby oil in it and I hated the smell, but she loved to play with it so I made it anyway. The things we do for our kids.)

Of course where there’s cloud dough, there needs to be play dough, too, right? Here’s a recipe for apple scented playdough from Preschool Play and Learn. Grab some apple playdough mats from Natural Beach Living to go along with it.

Make red and green “apple” stress balls out of balloons with this idea from Little Bins for Little Hands. You can even use them as a STEM activity by trying to stack them, a la Ten Apples Up On Top.

And while we’re talking about sensory things we’ve got to mention a few sensory bins, right? Try an easy and low-prep apple washing bin like this one from Busy Toddler, or make a fun apple orchard themed bin with this idea from I Heart Crafty Things.

Fun-a-Day has a great apple sensory bin made with dry chickpeas that are dyed different apple colors and uses apple pie spice to give you double sensory duty. This one is so cute! You can also use colored rice as the base if you don’t have chickpeas handy, like in this sensory bin from Life Over Cs.

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Have you read?

Fall Literacy Activities

Bring on the fall leaves, pumpkins and apples as we help little ones learn to recognize letters and get ready for reading with these fall literacy activities.

Practice letter recognition by feeding the scarecrow straw with the letters of the alphabet with this printable activity from ABCs of Literacy. It includes both uppercase and lowercase letters so you can practice with either or match them as you “feed” the scarecrow.

Match the letters on fall leaves with the letters on the worksheet to play leafy letter match from The Kindergarten Connection. Kids can color in the leaves they find or cover them with dot markers.

Or do the same thing with this free pumpkin color the alphabet activity using lowercase letters. It’s from The Kinder Life on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Work on sight word recognition with this pumpkin sight words printable activity from The Connet Connection on Teachers Pay Teachers. This free download lets kids practice their sight words while they hunt for a black cat.

Help kids learn to spell their names with this apple printable activity from Books and Giggles. Kids can find each of the letters in their name on apples, put them together to spell their name, then count the number of letters in their name.

Twisty Noodle has a fall words printable coloring page where kids can trace the letters for fall words: acorn, leaf, apple and pumpkin.

Little printable books are so fun for early readers to read and color. I See Fall is a free printable book from Fun a Day that includes six fall items: acorns, sunflowers, pumpkins, leaves, scarecrows and apples. You have the option of printing it will all the words on each page (I see pumpkins, for example) or with the word see missing so kids can practice writing it in on their own.

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