4 simple fall leaves preschool crafts & science activities
It’s November and it’s STILL 61 degrees down here in Arkansas! And that means it’s time for some fun fall leaves preschool crafts! Cooper and I grabbed our hoodies and cozy clothes and headed outside to explore the beautiful changing colors while learning a little preschool science doing fall leaves preschool activities.
Leaf Collection
First, we collected fall leaves from several trees with many different colors. I let Cooper choose the ones he was drawn to and then I picked a few more types of leaves that I knew we would need for our project. It’s important to make sure your fall leaf collection varies in colors, shapes, and sizes so they can observe all the differences between leaves.
We are lucky to have lots of different types of trees in our neighborhood, but you can also use leaves from bushes that change colors or lose their leaves if you are looking to add some variety to your collection.
We probably had more than 50 leaves in our bag by the time we were finished with our fall leaves walk.
Observing & sorting fall leaves
Once we got back home from our fall leaf walk, it was time for one of our fall leaves preschool activities. I spread the leaves out on some brown craft paper and let Cooper study and observe the fall leaves.
Then we sorted the leaves by their similarities. This was a challenge for my 4 year old. But I love pushing him because it means he’s learning! We charted ways to sort our leaves as we sorted.
He easily thought of sorting them by color… But notice the “green and red” leaves in between the red and green category! That was his solution for the leaves having both colors. I love the mind of preschoolers!
Then, we sorted the fall leaves by the tree they came from. Yes, I know the two green leaves came from different kinds of trees, but I couldn’t convince my stubborn 4 year old of that. So I just chose to let it go and not fight that battle. Choose your battles is the anthem of motherhood, right? #keepinitreal #hegetsithonest
Finally, we sorted our fall leaves by their size. Texture would be another great way to sort your fall leaves collection.
I love how our anchor chart turned out!! Craft paper makes some pretty awesome anchor chart paper, doesn’t it?!?!
Fall leaves Painting
After we were inspired by all the beautiful colors of fall, we spent our next learning day reading Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert and working on one of our fall leaves preschool crafts!
Then, we talked about the colors of fall leaves. I added paint colors to his palette as we listed the colors and then he did a q-tip fall leaves preschool crafts painting!
Cooper LOVED painting with q-tips and I loved that it was an easy cleanup! Just remember to only use one side of the q-tip… don’t let your kiddos flip those used q-tips over or it will be messy!
fall leaves Art
Our last fall leaves preschool activity was to read Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert. I love the creativity this book inspires!
When we finished reading, Cooper used some of the fall leaves from our collection to make his own leaf man! I’m hoping we will have more time later this week to let him make other things out of his leaves…that would make an *adorable* creation station to explore fall leaves, create leaf art and then write about it!
Grab all of these fall leaves preschool activities and more in my Fall Leaf Collection Mini-Packet!
