leaves Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Fall-Themed Printable Tangram Puzzles

October 12, 2018 By Deirdre

Your children will have fun exploring shapes and using them to create fall-themed tangram puzzles. The puzzles invite your children to slide, flip, and rotate shapes to get them in the correct position. Children that are used to seeing shapes lined up in a row will get to see them in new ways.

Before your children explore the tangram puzzles, you may want to read them a book about tangrams and tangram puzzles. Below you will find several of my favorite books that feature tangrams.

Links below are affiliate links.

Getting Ready to Use the Tangram Puzzle

You can download the Fall-Themed Tangram Patterns and open them with Acrobat Reader. This set was designed to be printed out onto a color printer.

Then you will need to decide what your children will use as tangrams. You could give a set of plastic tangrams to use or you could make your own.

How to Make Your Own Tangrams

You can print out the tangram puzzle from the tangram puzzle set onto fall-themed scrapbook paper. If you use paper with a design on both sides, their puzzles with have a fun mixture of blocks. You may need to trim the paper to get in just the right size to go through your printer.
Once you have printed out the puzzles, you can cut out each of the individual shapes. If your children are able, you can have them cut out the shapes.

If you like this fall shape activity, here are some more shape activities you will love.

Fox in Socks Tangram Puzzles

Exploring Giant Homemade Tangrams

Halloween Tangram Math Activity

Fall-Themed Free Ten Frame Addition Worksheets

September 4, 2018 By Deirdre

This free set of ten frame addition worksheets invites your children to work on addition facts that have a sum of ten. Children will enjoy filling the leaf outlines in each section of the frame with an object that matches the color of the leaf in that section. This activity will give your children a way to work on building addition sentences with objects. It will also give them the opportunity to explore how ten frames work.

You may want to read a book that features adding in it before starting this activity. Below you will find some of my favorite children’s books about addition.

Getting Copies of the Ten Frame Addition Worksheets

This set of Leaf-Themed Ten Frame Activity was designed to be printed out on a color printer. Each page includes two of the same ten frames. You can use one frame to demonstrate how to add to ten or have your children work in pairs.

Great Objects to Use on the Ten Frame Activity Worksheets

Pom-poms
Buttons
Plastic Pumpkins
Orange and Brown Counter
Orange and Brown Beads

Exploring the Ten Frame Activity Worksheets

Children will start by placing correct colored objects in each section of the frame. Then they can figure out how many orange objects they used. The orange objects will equal the missing addend in each sentence.

Then they can look for the other tens frame that uses the same addends. It will give kids an opportunity to see its turn around fact or a member of its fact family.

If you like this math worksheet, here are some more you will like.

Squirrel and Acorn Ten Frame Activity

Apple Addition and Subtraction Mats

Elf on a Shelf Number Activities

Caterpillar Addition Worksheets

Indian Corn Roll and Cover Addition

Adding with Two-Color Counters

Printable Leaf Identification Chart and Cards Set

September 22, 2017 By Deirdre

It is fun to learn about the trees that grow in your area. This free printable leaf identification chart and cards set will help you identify what trees they are. Both can be taken with you as you visit parks or go for a walk. You could also use the leaf identification chart to identify leaves you have collected and brought home from an outing.

Leaf Identification Chart and Cards

Getting Ready

Before you can start identifying leaves with the Leaf Identification Chart and Cards, you will need to print them out.

Then you might want to laminate or cover them with contact paper. It will help them last longer.

Finally, you will want to cut out the cards and punch a hole in the upper left-hand corner of them. You can then thread the cards onto a metal ring so they will be easy to carry.

Leaf Identification Outdoors

Your children can carry their leaf chart or cards around with you when you go on a walk or a hike. They can try to find as many leaves as they can on the chart.

Another way to use the chart or cards is to have them pick up leaves and look for them on the chart. They will have fun trying to figure out just what type of leaf they have found.

If your children find leaves that aren’t of the chart, they could bring them home in a bag. Then you could have them look through The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown-Ups or Tree Finder: A Manual for Identification of Trees by their Leaves (Eastern US) (Nature Study Guides) or Tell Me, Tree: All About Trees for Kids. They are all wonderful leaf identification books.

Leaf Identification Indoors

Instead of having your children head outdoors, you could set up a leaf identification science center. You could have the chart and cards along with a collection of leaves in a tub or box. Your children could go through the leaves and try to identify them using the chart or cards.

Here are some more leaf themed activities you will love:

Looking for Fall Colored Leaves with Viewer

70 Pages of Leaf Printables

Falling Leaves Sensory Activity

Looking for Fall Color Leaves with a Viewer

September 18, 2017 By Deirdre

Your children will have fun looking for fall color leaves with this printable leaf viewer. It is a fun way to review or learn colors. Children can use the fall color leaf viewer both indoors and out. Let me share several ways they can work on color words with it.

Fall Color Leaves Viewer

Getting Your Viewer Ready

Before you get started, you will need to print out the Fall Color Leaf Viewers. There are two you can choose from. There is a large viewer that may need to be held with two hands. The second viewer is about the size of half a sheet of paper.

You will probably want to print them on card stock. It will make the viewer easier for your children to hold. Another alternative is to print them out on paper and glue them to a piece of cardboard. Once the glue is dry, you can cut out the center of the frame.

Looking for Fall Color Leaves

Looking for Leaves Outside

Your children can take their viewers outside to look for leaves. You may want to ask them to look for one color at a time.

Remind them that they may need to look up into the trees as well as on the ground for leaves the color you have asked them to look for.

Looking for Leaves Inside

If you don’t have fall colored leaves around your home or school for your children to look at, they can look for leaves inside.

Search a Rooms

You can hide fall color leaves around rooms in your house or around your classroom. They could be real leaves, construction paper leaves or even fake leaves.

Then you could ask your children to find leaves of a particular color.

Search a Bin

The link below is an affiliate link.

Children can search through a bin of leaves to find leaves that are a particular color. They can hold their viewer with one hand while they search or place the viewer on the table and put leaves of a certain color in the frame.

This activity was created to go along with the bookRed Leaf, Yellow Leaf. It is the Virtual Book Club book of the week. Below you will find activities created by other blogs based on the book.

Leaf Measurement and Sorting Activity – Inspiration Laboratories
Autumn Leaves Crayon Rubbing – Mama Smiles
Foil Leaf Preschool Art – Preschool Powol Packets
Cinnamon spiced autumn leaf cookies – Rainy Day Mum
Handprint Fall Leaf craft- Messy Little Monster
Nature Color Hunt – My Bored Toddler
Pre-Writing Activity Leaf Theme – The OT Toolbox
Collaborate Leaf Tree with Cutting Practice from My Storytime Corner
Fall Leaf Movement Activity with Sidewalk Chalk – The Educators’ Spin On It

Count, Color and Graph Pumpkin Sheets

September 4, 2017 By Deirdre

The leaves and acorns displayed on this set of pumpkin sheets will be such fun for your children to explore. The first pumpkin sheet has fewer pictures on the pumpkin. That means there will be less data for your children to graph. The second of the pumpkin sheets has more pictures on its pumpkin. That means that will be much more for your children to graph.

Using the Pumpkin Sheets

Getting Ready to Use the Pumpkin Sheets

Before you get started you will need to download and print out the Count, Color and Graph Pumpkins sheets. You could have your children start with pumpkin sheet with fewer pictures if you like.

Ways to Use the Pumpkin Sheets

Counting and Coloring

Your children will need to start by counting how many of each object there is on each pumpkin. You can have them color the pictures before they count if you like. Another option is to count as they color.

Children don’t have to color all the similar leaves the same color. It might make it easier for them to count them if they are the same.

Graphing

The pumpkin sheets don’t say how your children to graph their data. They were left open-ended so you could decide how you want your children graph.

Bar Graph

Children could color in the boxes beside pictures to show how many of each object they counted. That would give them experience with making a bar graph.

Picture Graph

Your children could try to draw a smaller version of each of the pictures in the boxes. That would give them a chance to create a picture graph.

If you like these pumpkin sheets, here are some more graphing printables you will like.

Graphing Practice Worksheet Collections- Snow Theme

Graphing Ocean Animals with LEGO

Find, Count, Graph Ocean Animals

Roll and Graph Math with Apples

Lucky Charms Graphing

Fall Leaves Counting Activities with Printable

October 1, 2016 By Deirdre

Last year I made cup wraps that could be used to play a backyard carnival game. I recently decided it would be fun to rework the single cup wrap into a series of wraps. Each wrap displays a number from one to ten. You will also find leaves that match each number on the wraps. While you could play a version of the backyard carnival game with the new Leaf Number Cup Wraps, there are so many more leaf counting activities you can play.

Counting Activities

Make a Number Line

You can have your children create a number line with the cups. You can have them start with the number 1 or any other number you like.

Fill in the Missing Number

You can set out the cups in number order. Then you can remove three or four of the cups. Your children can place the missing numbered cup in the space you created between the cups.

Knock Them Down and Say The Number

You can create a tower or pyramid with the number cups. It will be up to you to decide how high you want your tower or pyramid to go.

Then your children can knock down the tower or pyramid. You could have them use a bean bag or ball to knock it knock it down.

Then you can have your children tell you the number of each of the cups they have knocked over.

Object Counting

You can place out a complete number line of cups or pick a few numbers to work on. Then you will have your children place the correct number of pom-poms on each cup.

Build a Number or Fact Family

Your older children might enjoy building a number or fact family. They will need to select three cups that create a family. Then they will share the addition and subtraction sentences that fit in that family.

After stating all of the number sentences, they can build a pyramid or tower. Then they can knock it down.

More Leave Themed Learning Activities

Leaf Themed Sensory Bin Activity

Song About Fall and Printable Leaf Shape Activity

Muffin Tin Letter Recognition Activity

Muffin Tin Skip Counting Activity

Falling Leaves Sensory Activity for Kids

September 30, 2016 By Deirdre

While I was brainstorming leaf themed activities to share with you this week, I remembered a sensory activity on Fun at Home with Kids. This falling leaves sensory activity is loosely based on it. One big difference is that I did the lacing with yarn.

Putting This Sensory Activity Together

Supplies
Scissors
Brown Yarn
Rectangular Laundry Basket

Leaves Made from the Following: construction paper, melt, origami paper

Constructing the Sensory Activity

Adding the Trunk and Some Branches

There really isn’t a right or wrong way to create the tree in the laundry basket. You just decided which side would be the trunk. Then you can string a long piece of yarn from one end of the basket to the other. Sometimes the yarn can be wrapped around a top rung of the basket and other times it can go down to a low rung. Other times you can string the yarn across to a side of the basket on the other end to create side branches.

You will keep wrapping until you run out of yarn. You can start a new long piece of yarn after tying off the first one or stop.

Adding More Branches

You will find it easier to add small branches by creating them with short pieces of string. You may decide to tie the beginning of the yarn to end of the string after creating a branch.

Creating the Trunk

You will take a long piece of yarn and weave it up and down across the strings making up the trunk. You will want to tie the end of the yarn to the first string before you start. When you have finished, you will tie the end of the yarn to the last string in the trunk.

If you want a narrow trunk, you can pull the string tightly was you weave.

Ideas for a Sensory Activity

Here are some different sensory activity ideas you can do with your tree basket:

Drop the leaves through the tree one by one.
Place leaves at the bottom of the tree. Then shake the basket. Children can watch the leaves falling down after the hit the tree.
Children can create a design with the leaves on top of the yarn tree. If the leaves fall through, they can reach through and pick them up. Balancing the leaves can be tricky, but is worth the challenge.

This is part of an early learning activities series inspired by I Can Teach My Child called Toddler Time. Although my son is no longer a toddler, I will be joining I Can Teach My Child to share activities you can do with your young children this month. I will include ways of using activities with older children in most of my posts.

Muffin Tin Skip Counting Sheets with a Leaf Theme

September 9, 2016 By Deirdre

Earlier this week I shared with you Apple Basket Muffin Tin Numbers. That printable set was designed to focus on one to one correspondence and number recognition. Today’s skip counting sheets build on those concepts and introduce two more basic math concepts. Skipping counting and patterns in my mind are two skills that walk hand in hand. Kids have to figure out just how many numbers they will count by looking for the patterns.

Skip Counting Sheets Visual Clues

I designed these skip counting sheets to give children a number of visual clues. You can choose to share the clues with your children or have them discover them by themselves.

What are the visual clues?

The odd numbers all have the numbers on the left side of the leaf.

Yes, that means your children can find the even numbers on the left.

Your children will notice that the odd numbers have orange leaves.

They will also notice that the even numbers have yellow leaves.

Your children will see that every other column is made of the same type of leaf.

Finally, they will see that every other number in a row is the same.

Skip Counting Sheets and Supplies

Some of the links below are affiliate links.

You will need to download a copy of the Muffin Tin Skip Counting Sheets with a Leaf Theme for Kids . They were designed to fit into a muffin tin, but you can use them on a flat surface if you like. I liked the idea of keeping the counting objects contained.

You may be asking yourself why after drawing oak leaves I didn’t use acorns in this counting activity. While I have done acorn math activities in the past, I decided to avoid the whole are acorns safe discussion this time. If you want to use acorns with these skip counting sheets, please use them. There are a number of counting objects you can use for this activity. I went with small pom-poms.

We used homemade pinching chopsticks for the apple basket counting activity. You could use them for this activity or have your children make pincers with their thumbs and pointer finger.

Below you will find a list of other number and skip counting sheets and their themes.

Apple Muffin Tin Counting Numbers

Apple Basket Counting Numbers

Pumpkin Muffin Tin Counting Numbers

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves- Read.Explore.Learn.

October 5, 2012 By Deirdre

This week we looked at the wonderful book Fletcher and the Falling LeavesFletcher the fox finds that his favorite tree has started to lose its leaves. Fetcher panics. He does everything in his power to help the tree keep its leaves, but it seems futile. The leaves keep falling off and other animals keep carting them off.By the end of the book, Fletcher understands more about the life cycle of a tree and how the tree can be given a new look for the winter.

What did we do with Fletcher and the Falling Leaves?

Foam Tree

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves- Read.Explore.Learn.

I created leaves out of foam for JDaniel to play with the fridge after dipping them in water. I also placed a paper tree trunk in a plastic magnetic sleeve that normally holds JDaniel’s preschool calendar. I love found it at The Christmas Tree Shops and it is great for school calendars and artwork.

JDaniel was able to place the leaves on the tree in the sleeve.
Oh! These leaves could also be played with on the side of a bathtub or on a shower door.Leaf Counting

JDaniel had to place the correct number of leaves on a plate to match the number on the center of the plate. We used leaves that we had gathered at a local park and from our yards.

Word Family Trees and Leaves

I created trees with word families on them and JDaniel had to match the leaves that word family. He isn’t reading yet, but he can look for a word with the same ending. We read the words on the leaves together.