Inside: 10 cute and simple leaf activities your preschoolers will love!
You might be looking for a rainy day activity, wanting to bring the outdoors in, OR looking for a fun and educational learning activity that you can do outside in the sunshine this fall.
Nature themes are so versatile for creating learning opportunities. There are many benefits to exploring nature for kids. In this blog you will find leaf activities that target literacy, maths, fine motor, memory, sensory and creative skills.
Many of these simple leaf activities come with a note in the instructions so that you have the option to use construction paper or real objects from outdoors.
Jump to:
- Leaf Activity 1: Alphabet tree
- Leaf Activity 2: Under the Leaf
- Leaf Activity 3: Munch the Leaf
- Leaf Activity 4: Potato Leaf Stamping
- Leaf Activity 5: Leaf Collage Hedgehog
- Leaf Activity 6: Craft Foam Leaves
- Leaf Activity 7: Sticky Note Word Trees
- Leaf Activity 8: Fingerprint Leaf Counting
- Leaf Activity 9: Patterned Leaves
- Leaf Activity 10: Dry Erase colour mixing leaves
- Questions about these leaf activities:
- More Nature Theme Activities
Leaf Activity 1: Alphabet tree
Version 1 using paper
You will need a piece of A4 paper, pens, a glue stick, half a toilet roll or cardboard for the tree trunk and 26 x leaf shapes cut from paper.
Write each lowercase letter of the alphabet around the top half of the paper. Write one lowercase letter on each leaf cutout. Use a piece of brown rectangular paper as the tree trunk.
If you have an older preschooler, you can have them do lowercase to uppercase letter matching. Then invite your child to match the letters and paste the letters on the paper to create their Alphabet Tree.
Version 2 using leaves or rocks
You will need a piece of A4 paper, a marker, a tray, sticks and 26 x leaves or rocks which you can draw on.
Place a piece of paper in the bottom with the letters of the alphabet written around the top half of the paper. Use a handful of sticks to create a trunk for your tree. Write the letters onto a set of rocks or leaves. Similarly, invite your child to create the Alphabet Tree by matching the letters on the paper and the rocks/leaves.
Related: Read this article to discover where to start with teaching your preschoolers the alphabet and letter sounds.
Leaf Activity 2: Under the Leaf
You will need a piece of green card, scissors, a marker, packing tape and 6 x small bug or frog figures or small counters.
Cut a large leaf out of green card and draw numbers 1 to 6 on it with a marker. Cover the numbers with clear packing tape to allow your child to erase and use it again.
Hide the 6 bug or frog figures, or any other small counters under the leaf. Ask your toddler to close their eyes and place a number of objects under the leaf while they are not looking. Invite them to turn over the leaf to uncover the frogs or bugs under the leaf. Count the frogs or bugs and trace the number on the leaf.
Leaf Activity 3: Munch the Leaf
You will need a piece of A4 paper, a marker, a sharp pencil and 5 x pipe cleaners
Draw five rows of leaves across the paper and write the letters l-e-a-f across each row, one letter in each leaf. Use a sharp pencil to make a hole in each leaf beside each letter. Taking one pipe cleaner per row as your caterpillar, your child’s task is to thread it through each letter to spell the word leaf. Sound out the letters with your child as he or she thread through each letter!
Younger children may find this easier if you cut out each row of leaves.
Leaf Activity 4: Potato Leaf Stamping
You will need: a piece of A3 paper, a marker, green, yellow and red paint and a potato.
Using a sharp knife, carefully carve a leaf out of half a potato.
Draw a tree trunk on your paper and let your little one have so much fun stamping leaves all around to make their own tree painting.
For an alternative, use leaves or flower petals as stamps.
Leaf Activity 5: Leaf Collage Hedgehog
You will need a piece of A4 paper, a pen, glue and a collection of leaves.
Draw a hedgehog’s small face, whiskers and four little legs on the paper, leaving out the body. Arrange and glue the leaves to create the hedgehog's spiky body!
If you would like to do this activity without leaves, give your child a few strips of coloured paper to rip into their leaf shapes, this is a great fine motor extension to the activity!
Leaf Activity 6: Craft Foam Leaves
You will need 1 x sheet of green A4 craft foam, scissors, a marker, a bowl and a dice
Cut six large leaves out of the craft foam and use a permanent marker to draw the 1 to 6 dots on the foam leaves, similar to what you would see on a die. Write the matching numbers on the other side of the leaves.
Do this activity during bathtime! Place the leaves in the bathtub of water. The foam leaves float in the bath and stick to the walls when they are wet.
Roll a die into a bowl. Invite your child to find the floating foam leaf with the numbers or number of dots that match that on the top of the dice.
Be sure to lay the leaves out to dry when finished so that you can use them again.
Related: Dice is a great tool for children to learn the important early numeracy skill of subitising. Find more fun activities to teach preschoolers subitising.
Leaf Activity 7: Sticky Note Word Trees
You will need: a tissue or small cereal box, thick cardboard, scissors, sticky notes, marker
Cut three slits in the top of your box large enough to fit a cardboard tree trunk. Use sticky notes to represent the leaves of the tree. On each tree trunk, write a simple nature themed word (no more than 4 letters) that is easy to sound out. Here are some suggestions: bug, leaf, tree, rock, ant, etc. Write each letter of the words on each sticky note.
Invite your child to choose a tree trunk and insert it into the box, sound out the word with them as you do this. Then unscramble the sticky notes and paste them on the tree trunk to spell the word.
Leaf Activity 8: Fingerprint Leaf Counting
You will need a piece of A4 paper, a pen, red, yellow or green paint.
Draw 9 small tree trunks with the numbers 1 to 9 in each tree trunk. Invite your child to dip their finger in the paint and make fingerprint leaves on each tree, following the number of the tree trunk.
Leaf Activity 9: Patterned Leaves
You will need construction paper, scissors, string, hole punch, a piece of paper and pens.
Cut out leaves in 3 different colours and punch a hole in each. Draw 3 leaves on strips of paper in the three different colours and in different sequences.
Invite your child to thread the leaves through the string, following the colour pattern on the paper. Repeat this with other patterns to make a colourful vine decoration. Hang this colourful handmade vine as a fall decoration!
Leaf Activity 10: Dry Erase colour mixing leaves
You will need sticky notes, a zipper bag, a marker, yellow pen, blue and red dry erase markers.
This is a colour mixing demonstration where you can show your child how blue and yellow mix to make green, and red and yellow mix to make orange all while talking about how leaves change colour in the fall.
Draw and colour two yellow leaves on sticky notes and place them inside a zipper bag or plastic folder. Colour over one leaf with a blue dry erase marker and watch it turn green! Do the same for the other leaf with a red dry erase marker and watch it turn to orange! (it will turn orange). Wipe off the marker ink to watch the leaves change colour again!
Try this activity using yellow leaves found outside. It works best if you can keep them steady by laminating them or sticking them onto a piece of paper first.
Questions about these leaf activities:
Using familiar themes in play and learning helps children to be engaged and make connections with their learning to the world around them. For example, in the above colour mixing activity, there is the opportunity to learn about both colour theory AND what happens to the leaves of deciduous trees in fall. Using the leaf theme may help children to remember the activity and connect it to what they see when they play outside or in other learning contexts.
Children are naturally curious about nature and giving them opportunities to explore, touch and feel natural objects that are seen and used everyday is a great way to help them develop a love of learning outside of more artificial learning environments. This is called heuristic play and while the activities in this blog are not exactly open-ended, they have some of the same benefits because they allow children the chance to interact with and manipulate natural resources.
The activities in this article are created with the purpose of bridging the divide between open-ended outdoor play and sit-down educational activities. For that reason, every one of these activities can be done at home with little to no access to outdoor space or resources. If you would like to do more nature based play and learning activities with your child, consider collecting resources like leaves, sticks, stones when you are able while out and storing them for a time when you might like to try using them in learning activities like these.
These engaging and educational leaf activities for preschoolers are a fantastic way to tap into the wonders of nature while fostering a love for learning. Whether you're seeking rainy day entertainment, an opportunity to infuse the outdoors into your indoor space, or a chance to enjoy educational activities in the radiant autumn sunshine, these leaf themed activities offer a world of exploration and creativity.
More Nature Theme Activities
Still keen to explore the nature theme with your child? I'm here to help!
I've got a whole list of Garden Theme Learning Activities, Apples Theme Learning Activities and Fall Theme Activities that you can try at home with your child, for hours of fun.
Or make this DIY Parts of a Flower Learning Toy to open up a conversation about the science in nature.
Happy learning and bonding!
Leave a Reply