Fall Math Activities for Kids

October 7, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

There are so many fun themes you can bring to the classroom in the fall, from apples and leaves to pumpkins, acorns, candy corn, witch hats…

Let’s stick to the earlier parts of fall for this roundup of fun fall themed math activities for kids.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has printable playdough mats that allow kids to count, trace the numbers 1-10, spell out the words and build the numbers with dough. Add buttons or other small objects as leaves for the trees they can count as they go.

Understanding patterns is a great basic for understanding math, and these repeating pattern printable cards from Taming Little Monsters are super cute as well as educational. There are six pages with four different patterns on each page and you can use them at home or in a math center at school. Or try the dot dabbing repeating pattern apple page from Tot Schooling, which uses different colors of apples in a row so kids can complete the pattern with dot markers.

Practice one-to-one correspondence with the leaf number tower activity from Fun Learning for Kids. This one uses domino style shapes with dots and kids build towers with cubes to the same height as the numbers on the leaf. That makes it a good fine motor skill activity, too.

Match the numbers on leaves to the numbers on the trees with this leaf number sorting activity from A Dab of Glue Will Do. This is a great one for the math center, and you could also use pom poms or other manipulatives to add “leaves” to the trees if you want.

That’s a similar idea to these printable tree math mats (which could be used other times of year, too) from The Kindergarten Connection. Write a simple math problem at the bottom (or roll a die to get the numbers) that kids can solve by adding or subtracting leaves. You could also use acorns, pom poms, buttons or any other little small thing you have handy.

Play a math game with apples from Playdough to Plato and kids can practice graphing and counting to see which apple comes out on top.

Older kids can practice multiplication with these color by math facts pages from Math with Raven. These are perfect for third and fourth graders learning their multiplication tables, as they will color all the problems with the same solution the same color to reveal the fall leaves.

Christmas Themed Math Activities

Snowflake Themed Math Activities

Thanksgiving Math Activities

Dr. Seuss Math Activities

Shamrock Math Games and Activities

Easy Valentine’s Day Math Activities

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Candy Corn Math Activities

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Book Review: Las Mañanitas

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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