Work on sorting and categorizing as your class plays a small-motor-skill practice game. Gather a jar full of fall items that will fit into the cups of an egg carton. Choose pine cones, assorted nuts and sunflower seeds. Add bits of turning-leaf-colored ribbons, beads or foam. Cut the lids from egg cartons so each child has one for the game. Make a set of picture cards by drawing representations of each fall item on index cards. Dump the the jar's contents in the middle of a table where the children are seated with their cartons. Make sure the children can reach the fall items. Line up twelve of the picture cards in a spot where all of the children can see them and say "go." Players rifle through the pile and place the items that correspond to the picture cards into the cups of the egg cartons--one item per carton. The first child to fill his carton correctly wins the game.
Get out in the fresh air and explain that trees lose their leaves in the fall--while you prepare for a game.Take a walk outside on a crisp autumn day after leaves have fallen. Give each class member a plastic grocery bag to carry on the walk. Let the children fill their bags with colored leaves. Bring the leaves back to the classroom and empty the bags into a laundry basket. Ask the class to stand in a circle in an open area of the classroom. Give the children a twin-size bed sheet to hold in the center of the circle. Teach them to wave the sheet gently up and down. Place handfuls of leaves in the middle of the sheet and wave it up and down to watch the leaves fly into the air then fall back onto the sheet.
Preschoolers make their own game board, then play a shape awareness game--and take the whole thing home at the end of the school day. Before class, cut circles, squares and triangles from red, yellow and orange construction paper. Include more shapes depending on the shape recognition skill level of your class. Cut enough shapes so each child has three shapes in each color. Give the children one green and one brown 9-by-12-inch sheet of construction paper and ask them to cut a tree trunk and a leafy tree top to glue onto a white 12-by-18-inch sheet of paper. Help them cut the trees and glue them to the paper if necessary. Give each child three of each colored shape. Play the game by referring to the shapes as "leaves" and calling a shape and color for the children to pick out and place on their trees.