Leaf Activities for Kids

Fall is right around the corner in the northern part of the world, which means it’s time for activities using leaves and learning about leaves. Here are some go-to activities and printables for fall that allow you to bring leaves into the classroom.

Of course you’ll want to start with a nature walk to gather some leaves. Then you can sort them by color with these printable cards from KC Edventures, or use the cards from Preschool Powol Packets to identify the kinds of leaves you’ve found.

Try matching leaves you find with other, similar leaves, like this activity from Schooltime Snippets. (It also includes other activities inspired by the book Leaf Man, which are lots of fun.)

You’ll also want to learn about the parts of a leaf with these resources collected by Gift of Curiosity, and try this activity that’s from the same blog exploring how leaves get water.

You can use some of your leaves to make bookmarks, as in this activity from Mommy Evolution. Or use your leaves for cutting practice or punching holes; both ideas are from the OT Toolbox.

And if you’ve got a yard or a playground full of leaves, you can make yourself a leaf maze or labyrinth for kids to explore. This idea is from Happy Hooligans.

Make sure you preserve some of those leaves for other crafts through the season or to decorate your Thanksgiving table. Red Ted Art has a rundown of the best methods for leaf preservation.

Get a full Montessori-inspired, leaf-related set of activities from Mama’s Happy Hive, which includes activities using real leaves as well as leaf shapes.

And if you don’t have any leaves you can use these printables to do a leaf shadow matching activity from Tot Schooling. Or make a roll and count fall leaves activity like this one from l (make felt leaves or punch shapes out of real leave if you don’t have leaf scatter to use).

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Leaf Reading and Writing Activities

As I write this, back to school time is right around the corner, and if you have kids going to school for the first time or who might need a refresher on what school is like, books can be a big help in calming fears and letting them know what to expect.

School Days by Fabiola Sepulvelda is a wordless picture book full of photographs of various things that happen during the school day, such as leaving home, getting off the bus, greeting your teacher, raising your hand to talk, circle time, reading, quiet work, lunch, recess, art and music, and greeting your parent at the end of the day.

This is a nice book to prompt conversations about the way things might look and things that might happen at school, and could also be used in the classroom to talk about routines and what happens each day. It’s meant to be for kids who don’t yet know how to read, but could be used with older kids as well.

Ready for School by Dona Herweck Rice and illustrated by Amanda Morrow follows a little girl through a day getting ready for school and thinking about all the things that happen at school. It covers things like calendar time, mat time, being read to, math (they’re learning to count to five), recess and art. She’s so excited to go she wakes her mom up and it’s still nighttime.

This one is good for kids who like reminders of how the routine goes (both getting ready for school and being there) and those who might be apprehensive about what’s going to happen or if it will be fun.

The same author has a series of books that are meant to be for ESL learners but would work for others as well. Welcome to School has photos and single words or short phrases for things you do to get ready for school, different ways you might travel there, greetings, morning meeting activities. people you might see at school (like teacher, student, custodian), places and objects you’ll find around school, things at recess and school rules (like line up and raise hand).

Your School Day uses longer phrases (“riding in car” instead of just “car,” for example) and older children in the photos. The routine is also for older kids and uses bigger words like announcements and equipment. It also shows photos of different subjects kids might study, different kinds of learning groups and more people and places you’ll find in school.

A Day at School is kind of in between these two, with older elementary students going through many of the same things. This one doesn’t mention morning meetings but also doesn’t use the level of vocabulary of the book for older kids. Either this one of Welcome to School would be fine to use with young kids who already speak English but might like to see all the things and people they’ll see at school.

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