This activity helps students understand the pre-math concept of sorting. Cut different sized, shaped and colored leaves from construction paper. Mix the leaves in a pile and ask your students to look at them and note the differences. Then have the students sort the leaves into piles based on like attributes.
Children can make colorful fall trees using their hands as the trunks. Trace one of each student's hands and wrists onto blue paper -- make sure they spread their fingers while you trace their hands. Instruct the students to color in their hand prints with brown crayons, creating the trunk and branches of a tree. Set out pieces of autumn-colored tissue paper. Show the children how to tear the tissue paper into small pieces and roll them into balls. Instruct them to glue the tissue paper balls onto the branches, creating fall leaves. Encourage them to further embellish their pictures, such as by drawing a sun or clouds in the background.
This activity teaches preschool children to match lowercase letters to their uppercase counterparts. Print out 52 pumpkin shapes -- 26 on light orange paper and 26 on dark orange paper. On one color of pumpkins, write out the lowercase letters of the alphabet, and on the other write out the uppercase letters. Set out the letters and have children match the upper- and lowercase letters.
This sensory activity encourages children to identify items based on how they feel. Gather a collection of common fall items -- leafs, acorns, pumpkin seeds, apples and pine cones, for example. Allow children to feel each of the items and then set the items in separate brown paper bags. Invite children to place their hands inside the bags and ask them if they can identify the items based only on how they feel.