Fall is a busy time in classrooms with the excitement of a new school year and students eager to meet their new teachers and classmates. This time of year also serves as a great theme for elementary school learning activities. In this article, we share some of our favorite fall activities, including arts & crafts, STEM, and literacy ideas that kids will love. At JLP Inspiring Minds. a curriculum-based elementary school, we utilize age-appropriate lessons for each grade and learning style.

Arts & Crafts Elementary School Fall Activities

Salt & Watercolor Fall Leaves

Supplies you’ll need: paper, pencil, leaves for inspiration, Elmer’s white glue, salt

Use real leaves for inspiration for this fun fall art project. Draw leaves with a pencil on watercolor paper. Use Elmer’s white glue to outline the leaves of the drawing. With the glue still wet, pour salt on the glue. Shake off the excess as you would glitter. Use watercolor paint to dot colors on the glued salt to create a beautiful picture.

Popsicle Stick Scarecrow

Supplies you’ll need: 12 popsicle sticks, orange and flesh color paint, hot glue gun, googly eyes, felt nose, fall flower, raffia

First, trim two sticks to about ¾ of the length of the others. Next, take about 9 popsicle sticks and form a square. Using a hot glue gun, attach the trimmed sticks to the back of the square toward the top and one closer to the bottom horizontally.

Next, the child will paint the front of the square, partly orange and part with a flesh color. Put a pencil mark about one-third down horizontally to help the child know where to paint each color.

Paint the last stick orange, which is the scarecrow’s hat brim. Place it slightly lower than the top of the painted square. Next, attach googly eyes, a felt nose, a fall flower on the hat, and raffia hair with a hot glue gun. Have the student draw their mouth and your art project is complete.

Science & STEM Elementary School Fall Activities

How Many Seeds?

Supplies you’ll need: Assortment of fruit like tomatoes, apples, lemons, pumpkins, peppers or cucumbers

This elementary school activity will explore seeds. Students will get hands-on and compare the number of seeds in different fruits. They can work individually or in groups to gather data about a specific fruit. Later, they can compare their findings with other groups. This is also a great way to incorporate math into a fall activity, as you can ask them the average number of seeds between all the fruits.

Candy Corn Counting Game

Supplies you’ll need: mini plastic cups, bag of candy corn, permanent marker

This fall activity for elementary school kids has them counting, adding, subtracting, and sorting. Start by setting out the cups and labeling them 0 to 10. Have them count out candy corn pieces to match the number on each cup. For older kids, ask them what they would get if they added or subtracted certain numbers together.

Fall Scavenger Hunt

Create a list of items fall-oriented for students to find. Some ideas include apples, pumpkins, acorns, candy corn, corn cobs, red leaves, green leaves, birds, twigs, etc.

You can even allow older students to make their own board and then take them on a nature walk and see how many of these items they can find. For younger children or during inclement weather, you can do this inside with assorted items and create a pre-planned board.

Literacy & Reading Elementary School Fall Activities

Journaling

While journaling is great all year, come up with some fun prompts to have the child write about such as:

• What is your favorite fall activity?
• What are you looking forward to doing the most this fall/holiday season with your family?
• For older students, you can ask them to write about Fall in their area and have them compare it to a different place in the United States or around the world.

To incorporate art into the lesson, have them draw pictures with their journal entries.

Story Weaving

This is when a group of people orally create a story together. Come up with a fall scenario for the child or students to use for inspiration. Each student adds one line to the story aloud until the story feels complete. This can also be done in written form, where each student gets a few minutes to add to the story, and then it is passed on. This encourages community and creativity while maintaining the fall theme.

Learn More About Our Curriculum-Based Elementary School

At JLP Inspiring Minds School, our close-knit community helps students succeed emotionally, physically, socially, and academically from K through 5th Grade.

Our child-centered approach incorporates a curriculum of English language arts, science, technology and media, math, international studies, and music appreciation. To schedule a tour or learn more about our elementary school, use our contact page or call us at 954-746-5437.