Bring purposeful fall play to your classroom with these Fall Leaves Sensory Bins for Preschool! This printable collection includes 10 activities that invite children to search for leaves, follow picture recipes, match letters and sounds, count, sort, build patterns, and explore early measurement and positional words.
Each activity includes teacher directions, an illustrated How to Play card, and additional ways to play. Use the materials during preschool centers, Pre-K morning tubs, small group instruction, or homeschool learning. The familiar routines make it easy to introduce a new learning focus while reusing your sensory bin setup.
✨ What’s Included in the Fall Leaves Sensory Bins
1. Leaf Soup Recipes
Children choose a picture recipe, find the ingredients, and count leaves into their soup pot. Includes a pot mat, colored leaf circles, 20 recipe cards, and blank recipe cards for creating new combinations.
2. Rake and Sort Leaves
Children search through the sensory bin and sort leaf circles onto red, orange, yellow, and brown basket mats. Add a small toy rake to encourage searching, gathering, and fine motor practice.
3. Leaf Letter Match
Children match letter leaves to the letters on tree mats. Uppercase and lowercase mats and leaf pieces support matching identical letters and matching uppercase letters to their lowercase partners.
4. Leaf Beginning Sounds Match
Children name the picture on a yellow leaf, listen for its beginning sound, and match it to a letter on the tree. Includes picture leaves and a Beginning Sounds Picture Key. This activity reuses the letter tree mats.
5. Leaf Clap and Sort
Children say a picture word, clap its syllables, and sort the leaf into a basket labeled with one or two clapping symbols. This activity uses selected one- and two-syllable words from the yellow picture leaves.
6. Fall Leaves Counting
Children choose a number card, find that many leaves, and place them on the tree. Includes a tree counting mat and number cards from 0–10 with dot ten frames for visual support.
7. Leaf Pattern Paths
Children copy repeating leaf patterns onto joined path strips. Includes six AB pattern cards, an AAB card, an ABB card, and reusable blank strips. Children can extend their paths, create new patterns, or find a missing leaf.
8. Leaf Detective
Children examine six yellow leaf shapes and find the matching pieces. Includes a matching mat and leaf circles. An optional magnifying glass encourages children to look closely and describe what they notice.
9. Measure the Leaves
Children line up the stem ends to compare leaf lengths, then measure a leaf using equal-sized cubes. Includes Compare the Leaves and Measure the Leaf mats, plus five leaf cutouts in different lengths. The measuring activity uses 2 cm linking cubes.
10. Where Is the Leaf?
Children follow picture directions to place a leaf in relation to a real box. Includes eight positional word cards: in, on, under, beside, in front of, behind, above, and outside.
📋 Fall Leaves Sensory Bins: Teacher Support Included
- Teacher Directions page for each activity
- Illustrated How to Play cards
- More Ways to Play cards with extension ideas
- Preparation and differentiation suggestions
- Sensory bin setup guidance
- Printable activity storage labels
✂️ Fall Leaves Sensory Bins: Preparation
- Print the required mats, cards, and activity pieces.
- Laminate for repeated use if desired, then cut apart the pieces.
- Add a suitable filler to a shallow sensory bin or tray.
- Tuck the activity pieces into the filler and place the matching mat beside the bin.
- Introduce the task using the illustrated How to Play card.
For the measurement activity, print at 100% or Actual Size and use 2 cm linking cubes. Optional tools such as tweezers, tongs, a toy rake, or a magnifying glass can add variety to the activities.
✏️ How to Use the Fall Leaves Sensory Bins
Introduce one activity at a time. Begin with fewer pieces, smaller quantities, or a limited selection of letters, then adjust the challenge as children become familiar with the task. Use the extension cards to revisit the materials in different ways.
These Fall Leaves Sensory Bins also work as tabletop activities without sensory filler. Use them for morning tubs, partner games, small groups, or independent practice after modeling. Store each activity’s mats, pieces, and directions together with its matching label for easy setup next time.
🌟 Educational Benefits
- Practices counting, number recognition, and one-to-one correspondence
- Builds uppercase and lowercase letter recognition
- Develops beginning-sound and syllable awareness
- Strengthens color sorting and classification skills
- Encourages copying, extending, and creating repeating patterns
- Supports visual discrimination and careful observation
- Introduces length comparison and measurement with nonstandard units
- Builds positional vocabulary and following-direction skills
- Provides fine motor practice and opportunities for conversation
Please note: This is a digital printable resource. Sensory bins, fillers, linking cubes, boxes, and other physical materials are not included. Choose materials appropriate for your learners and supervise activities involving small pieces.
Happy Teaching! 😊
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.