I absolutely love the little preschool-at-home routine that I have with my 4 year old, Kate, and 2 year old, Andrew.
It’s nice to have a little bit of structured, fun activity time each morning to look forward to. (You can check out the printable preschool planner I use here.)
To keep things interesting, we like to explore a different theme each week. Last week, we followed a fall leaves preschool theme.
Each day during the week, we:
- Sing a song
- Read a story
- Do a craft
- Do an extra activity (usually a snack or structured play)
It’s nothing too complicated, but we have so much fun that I wanted to share our plans with you. The activities you’ll find here are each tested and approved- mostly by my 4 year old- but sometimes by my 6 and 2 year olds as well. 😉
Download the plans here
You’ll get an overview page with links to all songs, books, crafts, and activities, along with a supply list for the week.
Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Planning for the week
Before we jump into it, here are 3 things for you to do before you start your fall leaves preschool theme.
- Check out 5 leaf books from the library. These can be any leaf-themed books. If you’re not sure which ones to get, check out the ones I recommend in the supply list. Or, you can watch the youtube read alouds I’ll be posting to our Facebook group each day instead.
- Browse the supply list. Make note of anything you want to use that you don’t already have at home. Add them to your shopping list or buy them on Amazon now.
- Print out the craft templates that you’ll need. All the links are on the supply list.
That’s it! If you do these 3 things now, you’ll be ready to go. 
Songs
I picked three songs for this unit. (A little repetition is great so that the kids can get to know each song before moving on to the next one.)
Autumn leaves are falling down:
Dance like a scarecrow:
It’s Autumn!
Stories
You can read any leaf-themed stories that you want for this unit. But here are the five that we used and love:
Leaves, by David Ezra Stein
| Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Leaves |
$10.89 |
Buy on Amazon |
Fall Leaves, Colorful and Crunchy, by Martha E. H. Rustad
| Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Fall Leaves: Colorful and Crunchy… |
$7.59 |
Buy on Amazon |
There was an Old Lady who Swallowed Some Leaves, by Lucille Colandro
| Preview | Product | Price | |
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There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some… |
$6.28 |
Buy on Amazon |
Leaf Trouble, by Jonathan Emmett
| Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Leaf Trouble | $6.70 | Buy on Amazon |
Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert
| Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Leaf Man |
$11.65 |
Buy on Amazon |
Crafts
All of this week’s crafts for the leaves preschool theme came from The Crafty Classroom, and they were all fantastic. You can check them all out here!
Here’s how our art projects turned out:
Watercolor fall leaves
This was so fun, and my kids were very focused on painting in each tiny little section! I thought they did a great job.
Zentangle fall leaves
I think this was my favorite of all the crafts. Again, it kept my kids busy for a very long time since it required so much detail.
Fall leaf spray painting
For this project, we just mixed some regular paint with water and poured it into spray bottles. My 2 and 4 year olds enjoyed the project, but they really loved cleaning out (and playing with) the spray bottles in the water table afterwards!
Texture and pattern fall leaves
This was another fun one. My kids love pastels because they’re so bright and vibrant. Here’s how ours turned out:
Chalk fall leaves
We didn’t happen to have chalk pastels, so we just used sidewalk chalk. I think it still turned out really fun.
Activities
Here are the five activities I chose to do this week.
Tree snack
This snack was simple to set up, and my kids enjoyed making their own trees to eat. It was a great activity to start the week with.
ABC Falling Leaves game
This is an alphabet sorting game: Put the capital letter leaves on one tree and the lowercase letter leaves on another.
Nature smash painting
My kids had so much fun collecting nature from around our yard and smashing with a hammer!
Ladybug on a leaf snack
This was another snack where I could give the kids the ingredients and they could create their own leaves and ladybugs. 🙂 Yummy!
Leaf sensory bags
I think this was everyone’s favorite activity of the week. We had so much fun collecting just the right leaves and making our bags.
(Although I did say that the bags had to stay on the dining room table because I was afraid of them breaking and getting oil everywhere!)
Extras
Throughout the week we did a few extra leaf-themed activities. We watched a great video that explains why leaves change color:
We also took a nature hike one day along a nearby creek to look at and collect leaves.
And my kids did this art hub one day during quiet time, which is great because it’s an activity they can do without my help.
I hope you have a ton of fun doing this fall leaves unit with your own kiddos. Thanks for reading!
-Laura
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