Fall is one of our favorite seasons! Besides the weather cooling down, it’s a fun filled time of year that means apples and pumpkins are ready for harvesting, the trees around us are changing, and there are many festivals and events to get us outdoors! If you’re looking to explore the many different aspects of fall with preschoolers, we have lots of Fall Theme Preschool Activities to get you started. Here, you will find some fabulous resources for planning your preschool fall theme. Most of these activities are designed for kids ages 3 through 5, but many can be modified for younger and older kids as well.
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WHY IT’S FUN
As the weather is changing, many fall activities beckon you to get outdoors and experience them in their natural settings. For example, visiting a pumpkin patch, watching leaves fall off a tree, or picking apples to name a few.
WHEN TO TEACH A FALL THEME
We love to dive into fall activities beginning in late August as we introduce our apple learning theme. This can also tie in nicely with a tree theme as we discuss the life cycle of an apple tree. A tree theme is an excellent way to touch on the changes that occur throughout seasons, especially in fall. Thus, leading to a great learning opportunity about leaves changing colors and falling to the ground. Trees and leaves are great to teach in September or October. Finally, we love to incorporate a pumpkin learning theme throughout October as pumpkins are harvested and are symbolic of fall.
TEACHING TIPS & MAJOR CONCEPTS KIDS WILL LEARN
If you’re planning a preschool fall theme there are many possibilities for incorporating meaningful early learning skills.
These are just some of the concepts kids can learn about during a fall theme:
- apples
- trees
- pumpkins
- leaves
- life cycles of an apple, pumpkin, or tree
- senses
- seasonal changes
You can also use miniature apples, pumpkins, silk leaves, or acorns as manipulatives for many learning activities to teach math and literacy concepts.
ITEMS TO COLLECT AND REQUEST IN ADVANCE
If you get parents, friends, and family involved you can enrich the experience kids have during your preschool fall theme.
Collect or ask people to help you collect:
- miniature pumpkins
- pumpkin seeds
- apple seeds
- leaves
- tree sticks
You might even invite special guests (or go visit if you can) to come and share about fields and hobbies related to fall. You could include:
- an apple or pumpkin farmer
- a dendrologist (tree scientist)
- a baker to share a favorite fall recipe
PRINTABLE FALL THEME LESSON PLANS
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
Explore the signs and symbols of fall with hands-on activities and fully developed fall theme lesson plans. Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:
GET YOUR LESSON PLANS
Also available on Teachers Pay Teachers.
MORE LESSON PLANS FOR FALL
For an entire fall inspired unit we’ve combined four of our most popular fall-related lesson plan packs into a 700+ page mega unit full of playful learning activities.
Get the fall theme bundle in our shop or on TpT.
RELATED FALL PRINTABLES
These resources are also great supplements to your fall theme.
Play roll and color math games during small group or independent times.
Use theme related writing journal prompts to reflect on experiences all season long.
And more!
INDIVIDUAL PRESCHOOL FALL ACTIVITY IDEAS ON FANTASTIC FUN AND LEARNING
Here on Fantastic Fun and Learning we’ve shared the following ideas to go along with a preschool fall theme. You’ll find lots of engaging activities to learn about apples, trees, leaves, and pumpkins. Take a few minutes to watch videos for some of our fall activities. (Click the playlist folder button with the arrow on it toward the bottom right if you’d like to quickly select which video you want to watch from the playlist.)
This collection of apple theme preschool learning activities includes lots of hands-on ways to learn about apples through literacy, science, math, art, and the senses!
Discover trees and the changes they undergo throughout the seasons by getting outside in nature, creating a tree craft or snack and learn so much more with our tree theme learning activities for preschool.
Learn more about how and why leaves change color in the fall with this collection of preschool leaf theme learning activities.
Check out our pumpkin activities for lots of hands-on ideas for a preschool pumpkin theme. Kids can learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin, create pumpkin art, and so much more!
MORE ACTIVITIES FROM CREATIVE EDUCATORS
Grab some fall objects such as leaves, pumpkins, or pine cones and have fun creating some process art this fall!
Create your own fall sensory bin with inspiration from these 20+ fall sensory bins.
Bring on the scented play dough invitations with this festive fall play dough activity ideas!
Get 24 creative fall leaf art project ideas.
Help kids learn to recognize and spell their name with these fall-inspired name activities.
Looking for a delicious way to get little ones to eat healthy? Check out some of our favorite and healthy fall snacks for kids.
We’ve found lots of fun ways to play and learn with play dough throughout fall. There are lots of wonderful scents and recipes to try out!
Put those cardboard tubes to use with these fun fall craft ideas using cardboard tubes.
INFORMATIONAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS
Learn about the process of how apples get from the orchard to the grocery store.
Find out more about the life cycle of an apple and caring for apple trees.
Curious George takes you on a tree adventure to learn more about different types of trees, leaves, and seeds.
Discover the different habitats trees live in and what they need to survive.
Discover why leaves change color in fall with this colorful informational video from SciShow Kids.
Watch this science demonstration to see how chlorophyll levels affect the changing of color in leaves.
Kids will be amazed watching this full time lapse of a pumpkin growing from seed to fruit.
Explore the life cycle of a pumpkin and learn how a pumpkin grows.
YOUTUBE SONGS
Practice counting to 5 with this fun song from The Learning Station.
Practice counting backwards from 5 with this fun twist on Five Little Monkeys.
Watch the seasonal transformation of trees and sing along!
Get moving and learn about the parts of a tree while singing to the tune of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.
Sing along to Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down from The Learning Station.
Identify fall colors in this counting song as you count to three.
Sing along as you watch and learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin.
Have fun singing Five Little Pumpkins to the familiar tune of Five Little Monkeys.
OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES
Finger plays and action rhymes are a great addition to your preschool themes. Here are a few terrific options to go along with a fall learning theme.
Sing some favorite Apples Songs from Everything Preschool.
This tree songs and fingerplays resource from Pre-K Fun has lots of great tree themed fun to choose from.
Choose from a wide variety of teacher submitted finger plays and songs on Preschool Education.
If you’d like to supplement your hands-on learning with some online games you might try:
Go apple picking with Curious George on PBS Kids.
Test your tree knowledge with these fun games about trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. You’ll find fun and challenging games such as Treevial Pursuit, ConcenTREEtion, and jigsaw puzzles.
Match the Leaves with Caillou with this leaf game from PBS Kids.
Join Curious George and PBS Kids to collect pumpkins on the farm.
FAVORITE FALL BOOKS
There are a ton of wonderful books to read for your fall theme. Below are some of our favorite picture books for a fall theme.
Bring the colors of fall to your kids with real photographs and nonfiction texts even if you can’t experience the changing colors in person.
MORE FALL BOOKS
Dive into a great book this fall with this list of our favorite fall books for kids. You will find books about leaves, pumpkins, apples, and more!
This seasonal list of alphabet books for fall will engage young learners throughout the season from football to turkeys, apples, leaves, and more!
OTHER PROPS AND TEACHING TOOLS
Reinforce learning with these hands-on materials for your fall theme. They can be used for sensory bins, crafts, and learning activities.
FREE FALL PRINTABLES
Use these apple alphabet letter mats to use hands-on ways to practice letter formation and recognition.
These printable apple number cards will help you explore number matching, ordering, addition, and subtraction.
Practice orally segmenting words into syllables with this apple syllable sort phonological awareness activity.
Explore shapes with this roll and color apple math printable activity.
Print out these apple letter cards to build sight words or nonsense words.
Practice basic addition with these apple number combination cards that go with our apple ten frame activity.
This roll and color fall math printable is great for practicing simple addition and doubles.
Practice 2D shape recognition with this roll and say fall shapes game.
Gather some acorns and practice letter recognition and sounds with this printable leaf alphabet activity.
Practice number recognitions, addition, and 2D shapes with this no prep set of Fall Color by Code coloring pages.
Collect seeds right out of a pumpkin for this hands-on pumpkin seed math activity. The free shape mats encourage shape identification, one-to-one correspondence, and counting.
Print these pumpkin number cards to practice matching, ten frames, ordering, and even basic addition and subtraction!
Work on number identification, counting, and doubles facts for addends 0 to 5 with this printable pumpkin roll and color math activity.
Practice counting to 20 with these quick prep fall leaf counting puzzles.
Learn the ABCs with this pumpkin seed alphabet matching game. Includes game mats for practicing both uppercase and lowercase letters.
Practice counting backward from 5 with this 5 Little Apples song.
Learn fall vocabulary with this fall movement song.
Or try this If It’s Fall song for even more fall fun.
POSSIBLE FIELD TRIPS OR ADVENTURES
- apple tree orchard
- pumpkin patch
- virtual field trip to see the changes trees undergo throughout seasons
WHAT NEXT?
As you wrap up your preschool fall theme activities take note of what the kids were most interested in throughout the theme. Continue on by investigating one of those concepts more in depth. Below are some possible suggestions.
More Fall Themes to Explore
RETURN TO OUR MAIN PRESCHOOL THEME PAGE FOR MORE IDEAS TO EXPLORE
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