Falling Leaf Art and Science - Fantastic Fun & Learning

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Singing is a big part of our daily activities. A simple preschool fall songs inspired us to create some “falling” leaf art. We also incorporated a little bit of science along the way.

FIND ALL OF OUR LEAF THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS

FOR HOME PRESCHOOL AND PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.

Setting Up

To set up the activity I peeled the backing off of large sheets of Con-Tact Paper (affiliate link) and taped them sticky side up on the ground. Then I set out some fall materials~leaves, small twigs, pumpkin seeds, and acorns.

Use anything you like. Not everything will stick to the paper, but that’s where the science lesson comes in!

You may also choose whether to use real leaves or not. Since those gorgeous real fall leaves don’t fall where we live I chose to use some that we bought from Dollar Tree a while back. If you do use real leaves, you might have the added sensory play of crunching up some of those leaves to scatter over the canvas.

Fall Leaf Song

Before creating our art we practiced singing and dancing to this simple song. It’s one that I’ve been singing in the classroom for years, but I’m not quite sure who to credit as the author. Let me know if you do!

Leaves Are Falling Down

(Tune: London Bridge)

The leaves are falling down.

Red, orange, yellow, brown

The leaves are falling down.

After singing we talked about what makes the leaves fall down to the ground. We discussed how gravity is a force that pulls things toward earth.

We also discussed whether the girls thought all of the items would stick to the paper and made predictions about which objects might fall off onto the floor when we lifted our paper up at the end. This was another way to incorporate science discussions as we talked about weight.

Then it was time test gravity and our predictions by letting our leaves and other fall items go.

Creating Falling Leaf Art

The girls had fun watching where the items landed. They giggled with glee as sometimes the wind caught a leaf and blew it a different way than they had planned. (If you are doing this on a very windy day, I’d recommended doing it inside, but it was fun to try outdoors on a very mild day.)

Eventually Tinker couldn’t resist the call of the delightfully sticky contact paper, and she sat down to add her own personal touches to her art creation.

When both girls were satisfied with their creations we took pictures of them so we could compare the before and after of the next step. Again we discussed what we thought would happen when we lifted the contact paper off of the ground.

As the girls predicted the twigs and acorns fell to the ground almost immediately, but they were surprised to see that many of the pumpkins seeds stayed on the paper.

They both wanted to add more leaves now that they were sure the leaves were going to stick. Then we found a bright window to hang their creations in.

PRINTABLE LEAF 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.

This set currently includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1) Roll and Say Fall ABC Game (uppercase and lowercase versions)
2) Roll and Count Leaves Math Game
3) Small Leaf Cards for Sorting and Patterning
4) Sight Word Trees Activity Mats, Letter Cards, and Sight Word Cards
5) Color Word Leaf Cards
6) Leaf Number Cards (0-35)
7) Sorting Leaves Color Mats and Leaf Cards
8) Fall Leaves Emergent Reader (3 versions)
9) Leaf Observation Recording Sheet