Leaf Activities for Toddlers

Since the leaves have been at their peak around here, I decided to do a few simple leaf activities with Sweet E before moving onto a Halloween theme. Take a look at similar themes I've done in the past with Honey Pot and Little M&M, or keep scrolling to see what we did this week!

Autumn Leaves + Quiet Bins - 2015

Autumn - 2013

Autumn - 2012

Books

It was slim pickings at the library, but we did manage to find these two fun books about leaves and autumn in general. Sweet E loved reading these throughout the week.

Leaf Counting - One-to-One Correspondence

I made a quick template with the numbers 1-5 and provided Sweet E with some leaf manipulatives.

She had no trouble placing and counting up the leaves. She's come such a long way since we've started our tot school activities!

Leaf Patterns

We kept the leaves out and made a few ABAB patterns on another sheet of paper. This was a new concept for her! 

Playdough

This was Sweet E's idea. I try to keep our activities varied, but she keeps requesting playdough, so that's what we did!

We used cookie cutters to make leaves of different colors, just as they are outside!

Then she took the liberty to decorate them using our beads and googly eyes.

Leaf Lacing

This activity and printable leaf comes from ABCs to ACTs. I printed one of the leaves onto cardstock, hole-punched it, and tied a string to one of the holes.

She surprised me with this activity!

Not only was she pretty good at it, but she kept going until it was done!

Sticky Paper + Tissue Craft

I placed a bare tree template under a sheet of Con-Tact paper (sticky-side-up) and showed her how to crumple up a "leaf" and put it onto the tree.

She did several leaves on her own...

Then she brought Minnie Mouse over to help!

After a while she pulled all the leaves back off, and ripped up the sticky paper. 🤷‍♀️ So to extend the activity I gave her a glue stick to see if she was interested in gluing the leaves on this time.

Minnie and Mickey supervised. 

Leaf Walk

For our final activity this week we went on a leaf walk. We often go for a walk of course but this time we were on a mission to find leaves in as many colors as we could!

We spoke not only of color, but of size and shape. Some were very big!

By the end of our walk, we had found quite a few!

She just loved grabbing bunches of them and throwing them up in the air!

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Beach Activities!

Our family is heading to the Outer Banks for a week! To prepare for our vacation, we did some beach activities. Click on the links below to revisit similar themes, or keep scrolling to see what we did this week!

Beach Theme (+ Introduction to Quiet Bins) 2015

The Ocean 2014

Beach Theme 2013

Beach Theme 2012

Books

We borrowed several books about the beach this week, but Sweet E had a definite favorite. I think we read each of them a couple times, but we read "At the Beach" over and over and over. It's a good one!

Countdown

We always create a fun countdown about twenty days before we leave. This year we did something new! Sweet E helped to color the sand pail, and the big kids helped to cut out the seashell numbers. Each morning, we placed one seashell into the bucket! I had created a pocket there by cutting the hole out of the sand pail, and taping another sheet of paper behind it. The kids loved this!

Mega Bloks Puzzles

I printed some cute puzzles from ABCs to ACTs with beach pictures on them, and taped the puzzles onto our Mega Bloks. I remember we did something similar during Little M&M's C is for Car week, as well as our 2014 Valentine's Day theme. It was a hit then too! Such a clever idea.

Sweet E loved putting these puzzles together!

She asked to do it again right away, and even had her stuffed Tiger join her!

Color-Matching - Beach Balls

I created these colorful beach balls in Photoshop Elements, and printed two copies. Then I cut out one copy, and asked Sweet E to match them up!

We talked about the names of the colors, and she matched them with no trouble.

When she finished she asked, "One more time?"

Of course, she had to hop up onto the couch and reach over to finish it this time.

And we actually did it three times in a row!

Beach - Small World

We have done several small world bins in our many years of Tot School. Fake snow with Santa and reindeer toys, construction trucks with an assortment of dirt and rocks, dinosaurs in sand, frogs on lily pads in the water, etc. But my top two would definitely be The Arctic bin from 2016 and this one! I happened to have a sheet of scrapbooking paper that looked like ocean waves. Combined with our kinetic sand, a few seashells, scraps of felt for towels, and some Playmobil toys from my own childhood, we had a pretty great setup!

Sweet E was so excited to dig in! 

We each took a character to play with, and they had all sorts of adventures! Things that we would do on our vacation, which we also read about in our beach books!

  

They made sand castles!

And buried one another in the sand!

The went swimming in the ocean!

Made footprints in the sand!

The fun went on and on. We later took out kinetic sand molds and made some crabs. Here is Sweet E getting in some counting practice!

And then playing some more!

I reset the bin, so that Honey Pot and Little M&M could have some fun with it after school. They loved it too!

Exploring Seashells - Fine Motor

This was a simple activity I did with Little M&M when he was one. But Sweet E also enjoyed it at two! She pushed all of the seashells into the empty wipes container, emptied it out, and started again!

Exploring Seashells - Playdough

And this part was Sweet E's idea actually. She wanted to play with the seashells in playdough! So I set her up with the playdough, our shells, and some tools. And I let her play while I was nearby in the kitchen.

She loved pushing them into the playdough, and making prints!

Hand Print Crab

We did this during a previous beach unit as well and it was super cute. I found a sheet of beach paper in my old scrapbooking stash, painted Sweet E's hands, and pressed them onto the paper. We used peach paint, because on our beach vacations we see a lot of sand crabs, and they blend in with the sand! When the paint dried, Sweet E helped to glue on two eyes.

And she squirt glue onto the paper for clouds!

We used some cotton balls. And she also glued on one small shell.

Here is the final product, and it is adorable!

She was so proud of her work!

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