The leaves are changing colours and the Fall Fair was in town. It’s officially the start of Autumn! Working with my Theme Team we decided to (pumpkin) spice up our preschool programs to celebrate the new season!
In general, we had leaf & acorn cutouts everywhere – walls, windows, etc… we made them at the local teacher resource centre on a die-cut press. Way faster than cutting out everything by hand!
Here are some of the highlights from our set up, programming and activities… enjoy!
Our decorated Just For Kids set — lots of leafy garland and scarecrows!
Hanging scarecrows – we had two on this bar… one activity was to hang between them then open legs wide in a straddle so that legs touched them. Another activity was still between them, and to raise legs to touch toes to the bar (but don’t let any part of your body touch the scarecrows!!!)
The Turkey Bowl!! Just a fun bowling station for some play at the end of class!
Crawl under the fall colours!
Fine motor skill development! When you get to the flower, squat to pick out of one pylon and replant it in the pylon on the other side. Harder than it looks for those little ones! (see video below for live explanation)
Step over the pumpkins and pine cones! The scarecrow is on a stick, so kids will hold up overhead while walking.
Example of walking forwards over the pine cones & pumpkins with the scarecrow held overhead (keeps them from holding on to you!)
Felt leaf place mats that we used to designate spots for jumps (i.e. star jumps) or statics (i.e. stork stands).
Just for fun!
More multi-use props – the felt leaves and wood cookies usually used for moving over/on/between and the scarecrows used for holding while on beam or doing other balance skills!
A multi-use prop often used in warm up games or for a fun skill tester at the end of classes. See below for details.
Warm Up Game:
Place all the leaves words facing down. When the music plays (Turkey in the Straw!), coaches direct the kids to move like a farm animal that they would see at the Fall Fair (horse, chicken, pig, duck, etc). When the music stops – everyone freezes!!! One child is chosen to select and turn over one leaf. All the kids will perform the skill named on the leaf. When completed, repeat until all kids have a turn flipping a leaf over.
Cool Down Game:
Super simple – place all the leaves out, skill side down. Start with the coach selecting one leaf. The coach will call out the name of the skill — the first kid to do the skill get to choose the next leaf!
These little leaves were used in a warm up game! See explanation below.
Warm Up!
Preface this game by asking the kids if they’ve ever made a leaf pile before! Get them all excited about how fun it is to rake leaves and then jump in it – and how soon all the leaves will be falling and they can probably make piles at home or in the park!
To set up, you need about 50 or so of these mini felt leaves (packs of 25 at the dollar store) all spread out on one side of the floor. On the other side of the floor is a hula hoop. The kids collect one leaf at a time and then bring it back to the hoop. They have so much fun running and collecting leaves. Continue until all leaves are collected. Give high fives. Optional: let kids do a tuck jump into the leaf pile (a.k.a. hula hoop) one at a time. Simple, but fun!
And that’s it for this theme week!
Check out some of our other theme week ideas :)
