We love fall! It’s finally crisp and cool and gorgeous out. The apples are tart and crunch, the cider is delicious, and the donuts are fresh and warm. And as a former Montessori teacher, I love using the seasonal shift to present skills and activities in a new way. So here are some Montessori-inspired fall activities that my kids love.
Fall Nature Walk
Our first and favorite fall activity is a nature walk. Sometimes we drive out to a hiking trail and walk in the woods, but more often than not we just take a tour of the neighborhood. My kids love collecting objects they find on our walks, and will happily fill baskets with acorns, pine cones, burs, and treasures of all kinds. Some of these they use in their play outside, but some I keep and dry and use for most of the rest of our fall activities.
Fall Object Sensory Bin
This fall activity is so easy, and there are endless variations possible. Currently, our sensory bin is a big, beautiful wooden salad bowl I found at a thrift store, and it’s full of walnuts, acorns, burs, and pine cones. Later this fall, I might fill a bin with rice or dried beans and then throw in some acorns and whatnot for the kids to dig through and find.
Fall Object Counting
My kids always seem to get bored with working on a skill long before they’ve mastered it, and counting is no exception. I’ve been switching out what we’re counting regularly since G was learning, and it’s even more valuable with William. This summer we counted seashells, but now we’re counting acorns and walnuts. I grab a handful from our sensory bin and ask him to count how many I have, or I hand him a sandpaper number and he has to pull out the right number.
Leaf Rubbings
This fall activity is a classic. Who among us hasn’t rubbed leaves? It’s a great art activity for fall, and easy to combine with making fall greeting cards (leaf rubbings make for beautiful card covers) or even a water-color crayon resist painting (you paint the background in gorgeous and complementary colors). It’s also a wonderful introduction to botany- rubbing the leaves makes their shapes and their parts stand out to kids.
Leaf Laminating
I love laminating beautiful fall leaves, they make for beautiful window decorations. My kids always, always, always come in from outside with a trove of perfect leaves that they are so excited to show me. So instead of letting them all dry out, we take the most special of them and run them through the laminator, and then cut them out. You can do this with single leaves or with groups of them. (Don’t have a laminator? Check out this one. I love it)
Fall Leaf Cutting Work
William is working on his scissor skills, so I’ve made him a fall snips tray. There’s a piece of paper with a leaf shape drawn on it, a little bowl for his snips, a glue stick, scissors, and lots of strips of different colored paper for cutting. What he does is this: he cuts the strips of paper into little snips, and then when he has enough, he glues them into the leaf shape, creating a leaf collage. G is proficient with scissors, but still enjoys the collage making too!
Fall Sorting Work
Sorting is a valuable preschool activity, and there are many different fall variations. We can sort leaves by color, or acorns by size, or our fall nature walk treasures by type. In addition to the simple sorting, G and I have also been talking about making charts and graphs, so she is able to make a graph showing her data.
Leaf Pouring and Scooping Works
We have this fabulously shiny leaf confetti. I don’t know when it first came into our lives, but it is amazingly versatile, perfect for a myriad of fine motor activities. The leaves are so appealing to the kids- they’re tiny and shiny, and they’re drawn to whatever work I put out using them. Most of the time, I take two small pitchers of equal size and put them on a tray for a pouring work. The kids simply practice pouring the leaves from one pitcher to the other, delighting in watching the shimmering fall cascade. They’re also the perfect size for a scooping work- two small bowls and a spoon for a scoop on a tray, and they can practice transferring them from one bowl to the other. For G this year, I’ll put out a tong work to give her even more of a challenge.
If you’ve already got your fall activities well in hand and you’re ready to start thinking about winter (you obviously are more on top of things than I am), you can check out this post from the archives.