Leaf Reading and Writing Activities

As kids go back to school it feels like fall even if it isn’t technically fall yet, and a great way to start the year or an early unit to have ready for when the leaves start to turn is activities having to do with leaves.

You can use these printable worksheets from Homemade Heather to talk about the parts of a leaf, photosynthesis, why leaves change color and log your own leaves from a leaf hunt, among other things.

There are writing activities involving leaves from Sunshine and Lollipops that you can download for free at Teach Simple. They include a creative writing exercise, a Venn diagram to compare two leaves, and other things to write about leaves you collect as a class, among other things.

Kids can draw and write about their own leaf with this writing activity from Yearn 4 Learning. I love the one shown above where the child turned the leaf into a bird.

Grab a set of printable leaf letters from Modern Preschool to use to decorate the classroom, help kids spell their names (or use for name cards at their desks) and other activities. And if you want to go full on leaf theme in your writing center, check out these leaf themed grammar and writing posters from Amazon.

I also love this fall leaf writing activity from Teach With Me. You can use leaf shapes and have kids write something or work on a list of things (what we love about fall, qualities of leaves, different kinds of trees, etc.) and hang them like falling leaves in the classroom.

There are tons of books written about leaves, and lots of activities you can do with them, such as:

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert activities from Sounds Like Fun at Teachers Pay Teachers
We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger, leaf hunt printable from Primary Playground
Leaf Man by Lois Elhert unit study from Proverbial Homemaker

Need more fall themed literacy activities? Check out this post for literacy activities and this one for printable books with a fall theme.

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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