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Fall (Leaves, Owls, Squirrels, Nuts)

From Stormie:
Although I'm posting ideas below as often as I can, my very favorite activities have been reserved for my "FALL" booklet (see the "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers" section of my website).

Fall/Leaves

Here's a little poem I wrote about the seasons:

Seasons by Stormie Seevers The color of Fall is brown when leaves fall to the ground The color of Winter is white when snow falls all around The color of Spring is green in all the flowers and trees But I like Summer best when sunny yellow shines on me. You could introduce the poem in the Fall and use pictures of the four seasons to give the children visual reminders to go with the seasonal names. Then with each new season, you could emphasize the poem again. Follow-up discussions could involve asking the children which season they like best (language activity).

Snack: I love letting the children cut out leaf shapes from pieces of bread and then spreading on peanut butter before eating a brown "fall leaf." (Beware always of nut allergies.)

Small Fall Trees: (Creativity Within the Limits of a Theme): In advance, hang pictures of fall trees in the Art Center and provide drawing materials (crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc). Also in advance, draw a tree trunk on each child's 5x7 piece of paper. During Free Choice Play, allow children to "draw" their own versions of the leafy part to the tops of the pre-drawn trunks.

Old Phone Book Projects:
1. Cut various sizes and types of leaf shapes from the pages of old phone books and place them in the Art Center for children to use in their creative "Fall" projects.
2. Although phone book pages aren't quite as thin as tissue paper, children can still "scrunch" pieces into smaller shapes to create 3-dimensional looking "fall leaves" or "fall tree" projects. ("Scrunching paper" is a great fine motor activity.)

Language Learning Center Activity: Fall Colors Match: Using markers in the same colors, print fall color words on small business-sized cards (red, yellow, brown, orange, etc). Place them in a basket along with construction paper leaves in those same colors. Children match the leaves to the color word cards. (To make the game more interesting, cut different sizes of leaves.)

Gross Motor: Provide small rakes and let children rake real leaves somewhere outdoors.

Easel: Creative Art (within the limits of a theme): After having discussed Fall, provide several fall colors of paint and simply suggest, "Can you use all these beautiful colors to paint a picture about Fall." Praise whatever they paint, ask them to tell you about their fall picture, print their exact words on their papers, and read it back to them.

Blocks Center: Place real fall leaves in a small box and then put it in the Blocks Center for children to play with as they choose.

Science: Place a book about leaves in your science center along with real leaves and a magnifying glass.

Song: The first verse is all there was to this song when it was given to me. I created the second and third verses and then turned it into a creative dramatics social game: Have children stand. Pass out red, yellow, orange, and brown paper leaves (one leaf per child). While singing the words, act them out. (Don't forget to define the word "mellow" to the children.)

When Fall Comes
(Tune: She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain)

Leaves turn red and yellow when fall comes
(hold up red and yellow leaves and make them dance throughout verse)
Leaves turn red and yellow when fall comes
Leaves turn red and yellow and the apples taste so mellow
(pretend to eat apple with one hand while leaf dances in other)
Leaves turn red and yellow when fall comes.

Leaves turn orange and brown when fall comes
(hold up orange and brown leaves and make them dance throughout verse)
Leaves turn orange and brown when fall comes
Leaves turn orange and brown, and they fly all over town
(hold onto leaves while pretending to make them fly about)
Leaves turn orange and brown when fall comes.

Leaves float to the ground when fall comes
(make leaves and bodies float slowly throughout verse, eventually landing on floor)
Leaves float to the ground when fall comes
Leaves float to the ground but they hardly make a sound
(everyone go shhhhhh....)
Leaves float to the ground when fall comes.

From Sue Miller in South Dakota:
Classroom Tree:
Advance Preparation: First, make a bare (leafless) tree out of brown construction paper (about 2 1/2 ft wide and 3 ft in height). Cover it with clear contact paper in order to reuse it. Place it on your bulletin board (or wall). Purchase white pellon interfacing, and trace leaf shapes onto it (the pellon) and cut them out (I use oak, maple, or elm leaf shapes). Trace enough for each child to have two leaf shapes. (Don't forget to print their names on them, perhaps on the stem.)
To do the actual activity: Create leaf colors by mixing water and food coloring (yellow, red, green) into containers and place eye droppers in each color. The children then use the eyedroppers to squirt colors onto their leaf shapes in any way they see fit 'til the white area is covered. (As the colors bleed together, there usually are some brown areas which is ok as it's also a fall color.) When they are done, lay them flat on trays covered with wax paper to dry. When they are dry, thumb tack them to your bare tree until it is covered (overlapping all the branches).
**This is the same concept as using colored water on coffee filters except that, by using pellon, the colors are much more vibrant when dry (unless a child drenches the pellon with colored water.)
**Skills practiced for this activity include: Color recognition, fine motor, creativity, science (changing of the seasons, color combinations), and there's always plenty of language going on during the activity.

Owls

Owl Craft Projects:
1. Fall leaves make great wings for paper owls with button eyes.
2. Handprint Owls: If you can find the right coloring book picture of an owl, make a pattern for yourself minus the owl's wings.  Children then dip their hands in brown paint and make prints on each side of the owl for its wings. (For the print to look like wings, the fingers must be held very close together (a fine motor exercise) and the print must be made with the fingertips pointing downward from the shoulders of the owl).  It is a bit tricky, but cute if done correctly.  You may want to make one yourself first.
3. Fine Motor: Let children glue birdseed on an owl cutout.

Mini-Environmental Ed: Talk about the homes of owls.

Put a book about owls in your science center.

Let's All "Hoot!": (Listening Skills/Rhythm Patterning/Phonics): Make verbal "hooting" sounds, creating patterns, and have the children copy them. For example, you might say, "hoot hoot - hoot hoot hoot," and the children would then try to verbally repeat it.  (The - represents a pause.)

*Try hooting to music.
*Hoot a familiar tune and let children guess the name of the song.

Gross Motor: Neck Stretches: Let's turn our necks like owls (turn necks slowly right then slowly left). Add some slow classical music to stretch by.

Social Game: Creative Drama/Language/Thinking Skills: Children take turns pretending to be a "wise" old owl as the other children ask them questions (any question). (Don't forget to define the word "wise.")


Squirrels

Group Discussion: Have the children watch you crack various types of nuts during group time. Better yet, allow them to try it as well. Related to this, talk about how you think squirrels crack nuts. Do you think it's as hard for them as it is for us? Do they use nutcrackers? How do they do it? (Provide pictures if possible.)

Social Game: Play "Pin the Tail on the Squirrel."

Science: Introduce children to the flying squirrel through pictures in your Science Center.

Mini-Environmental Ed: Talk about the importance of saving the homes of squirrels (trees).

Squirrel's Fluffy Tail Art: Give each child a squirrel cutout with a big fluffy tail.  If you any old fur scraps, they can glue this or any other fluffy-like brown to gray collage material to the tail section of the cutout, exaggerating it a bit.

Gross Motor: Nut Throw: Draw a simple tree trunk on a box and then cut several sized holes into it. Have children throw various nuts (in the shells) through the holes to "Mr. Squirrel."  (Just be careful not to hit him on the head.  :-)

New Fun With Old Rhymes: Read this old rhyme to the children while pretending to be squirrels. (Ask them what they think his supper was.) Talk about the words that rhyme.

Whisky Frisky
(Author Unknown)
Whisky Frisky, hippity-hop
Up he goes to the treetop!
Whirly, twirly, round and round
Down he scampers to the ground.
Furly, curly, what a tail,
Tall as a feather, broad as a sail!
Where's his supper? In the shell,
Snap, crackity, out it fell.

Nuts
So, how can you use a couple bags of mixed nuts (in the shell)? Let me count the ways:

Pre-Math: Sorting     Matching     Counting     Patterning

Art Center: Make playdoh imprints     Make "Nutty Faces": Children paint or draw faces on them

Music:
1. Let each child choose two nuts to strike or rub together to the sounds of music.
2. You create a sound pattern by clicking your two nuts together and then have the children copy it with theirs.

Gross Motor: Roll them     Toss them     Walk with one on your head (balancing activity)     Kick them

Fine Motor: Squeeze them     Flick them (tricky, tricky)

Creative Drama:
1. Put some in the Play Kitchen (kept in their shells) for children to pretend to eat and/or use as play food.
2. Put some in the Blocks Center for children to play with as they choose.

Art/Science Projects:
1. Children can paint with nuts in the same way they would marble paint: Place paper in a box lid and then have children scoop a nut from a color of paint, place it on the paper, and then move the box lid around forcing the nut to roll around, creating a painting. Throw these nuts away after painting with them.
2. Children can dip nuts in paint and make prints.  Throw these nuts away after painting with them.
(Obviously, some nuts work better than others for these projects, but that's part of the science -- allowing the children to experiment with the nuts and discovering this for themselves.)

More Science: Show children pictures, or better yet, let them examine real examples of, and discuss:
What's a chestnut? It's a nut we can eat that grows on a tree
What's a buckeye? (I mean other than someone who plays football for Ohio State! Hee, hee! ) Buckeyes are similar to chestnuts and grow on trees.
What's an acorn? It's the nut of an oak tree.
What's a hickory nut? It's a small round tannish colored nut, again from a tree

Stormie's Games: By the way, I offer "Birds and Chipmunks" patterning cards in the "Teaching Aids" section of "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers."

Share your ideas too. E-mail me at stormie@preschoolbystormie.com

Donna, from West Virginia shares this fabulous idea she got at a meeting from speaker Jean Feldman:
Make 3-4" cuts down from the top of a brown lunchbag, open it, then twist it for a great stand up tree. Have children glue tissue paper leaves on it. It's great for "fall trees" projects.

From Susan Wray, Library Storytime Leader, Dyersburg, Tennessee:
Creative Drama: I made huge colorful laminated leaves, hole punch them, and tie them to a string for children to wear when acting out this rhyme:
Autumn leaves are falling down, yellow, orange, red, and brown
Whirling, twirling all around, until at last they touch the ground.

From Alisse Coil, Duchesne, Utah:
Fall Wreath: We have alot of trees in the yard. I wait for lots of leaves to fall on the ground and then I take the children out to gather them. We then come inside and sort the leaves by color, shape, or size, and we count them. Then I give the children a paper plate with the middle cut out and they glue leaves around it to make a fall wreath.

Here are several ideas from Michelle, in Nebraska:
Fall Related Books:
*Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
*Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
*The Falling Leaves by Steve Metzger (and it's sequel) The Biggest Leaf Pile by Metzger. Related activity: Campfire Reading: When the seasons change to cooler temperatures, I invite the children to gather around my circle time campfire for some cozy reading. I create a campfire by adding real logs to the rug. I tuck red/orange/yellow posterboard flames in and around the logs. I invite the children to grab their rest-time pillows and blankets and "cozy up to the fire."

Classroom Decor:
Tree Mural: I enjoy doing an autumn tree mural for outside my classroom door every year: I paint a very large brown tree trunk and branches onto butcher paper. Then the children dip their hands in autumn colored tempera paints and stamp their little handprints onto the tree. Some kids stamp on the ground, some on the branches, others appear to be drifting to the ground. I add a heading to the mural usually saying "Happy Fall from Mrs. Freed's Preschool Class!"

Creative Movement/Song: This Is the Way We Rake the Leaves
(Tune: Mulberry Bush)
This is the way we rake the leaves, rake the leaves, rake the leaves
This is the way we rake the leaves, on an autumn morning
This is the way we pick the apples, pick the apples, pick the apples
This is the way we pick the apples, on an autumn morning
This is the way we feed the squirrels, feed the squirrels, feed the squirrels
This is the way we feed the squirrels, on an autumn morning

Fingerplays:

A Leaf Pile
I like to rake the leaves in fall (pretend to rake leaves)
And pile them in a clump (make piling motion with hands)
Then step back a little way (take few steps back)
Bend my knees and jump! (bend knees and jump)

Five Little Leaves
Five little leaves up in a tree (hold up five fingers)
One little leaf said, "look at me!" (hold up one finger)
The leaf let go and down he fell (palms down to ground)
Now he doesn't feel so well (rub bumped head)

Book for "Squirrels" Theme: Miss Suzy, by Arnold Lobel
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Reminder from Stormie: If you would like to begin collecting ALL my current classroom ideas (each on a 4 x 6" index card), as well as new ones that I create, you can do so by ordering my "Activity Cards." Click here to check them out.


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