9+ Fall Activities for Preschoolers for Fun, Multi-Sensory Learning

You’ll find no shortage of engaging ideas to keep your preschooler learning this fall. In this post, you’ll find a variety of fall activities for preschoolers that will help your child develop necessary skills while having fun.

If you’re looking for fun fall learning activities for your preschoolers, you’ve come to the right place. Continue reading for lots of amazing ideas to keep your child busy learning this fall through play and engaging, hands-on activities.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.

Fall is hands-down my favorite season of the year. My kids have always enjoyed it too. As a homeschool mom, I’ve found so many wonderful activities to incorporate into our learning that fit right in with the season. Below you’ll find these ideas in one place to pick and choose what will benefit your homeschool preschool this year.

Perfect Fall Activities for Preschoolers

When you are teaching your preschooler this fall, be sure to include lots of seasonal activities as well. Kids learn through hands-on play and there is no shortage of that in these ideas!

• Read fun fall books with your preschooler.
• Create fall sensory bins to encourage fine motor skill development.
• Have hands-on materials like playdough available. Choose colors and scents to match the fall season.
• Enjoy fall art projects together with materials like chalk art and watercolors.
• Add in fall-inspired music to your preschooler’s day.
• Use fall-themed activity sheets while working on literacy and math skills.
• Get outside and explore all the wonderful changes happening around you.
• Make time to go apple picking or visit the pumpkin patch with your preschooler this fall.
• Include fall-themed learning activities for your preschooler.

Wonderful Fall Books for Preschoolers

With so much going on in nature during fall, you’ll find lots of books to include in your preschooler’s reading basket. See which fall books for preschoolers are available in your local library or consider purchasing favorites to have on hand year after year. These books also make great additions to your fall nature studies.

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman

This book is a favorite of ours. It’s a perfect read aloud that not only shows your child what all goes into an apple pie, but also adds in some geography. The apple pie recipe in the back is a must-do follow up activity after reading the book. It’s quickly become a family favorite in our house!

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn by Kenard Pak

This book is such a great way to show the changes that will be happening as summer turns to fall. It’s a very simple read with lovely illustrations.

Pumpkin Town by Katie McKy

Pumpkin Town is a cute little book that preschoolers are sure to love. It’s a story of a family of pumpkin farmers who harvests pumpkins that grew all through a town. This book can lead to discussions about seed dispersal and how plants grow, as well as having a strong work ethic. My little guy loves it.

The Falling Leaves by Steve Metzger

You may have to see if your library has this book or find it used. It’s such a fun book about the journey a few leaves take with the help of the wind as they fall. The book can lead to discussion about colors and types of trees.

Strega Nona’s Harvest by Tomie dePaola

Tomie dePaola is one of my favorite children’s book authors. My kids and I love the Strega Nona books. This one is a lovely book about how Strega Nona takes a big harvest and uses it to create a feast for the town.

A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman

This book is a fun read during November. My youngest chose this book as his bedtime story every night last year. All the townspeople try to trick a turkey into modeling for and judging an art contest so that they can eat him for Thanksgiving. Your little one will giggle at how the turkey outsmarts them.

Amazing Fall Sensory Activities for Preschoolers

Fine motor development is such an important skill for preschoolers. They need strong hands in order to write well and use scissors. I like to create fun, hands-on play activities to help my kids develop these muscles.

Fall Sensory Bin Ideas

Sensory bins are fun ways to help toddlers and preschoolers learn. They are extremely versatile and can be personalized for the season or your child’s interests. You can make them quite inexpensively and even include math and literacy skills with them. Since they can be used independently, sensory bins make a perfect activity to keep your little ones busy as you homeschool older kids or attend to household chores.

To make some fall sensory bins, head to a dollar store, perhaps a craft store, and the grocery store. Look for fall-themed table scatter like small plastic pumpkins, leaves or play spiders. Good base materials for fall bins include oats, dried chickpeas that you can dye in fall colors, and shredded paper in fall colors. See my video on fall sensory bins for examples on how to use these materials to create five fun learning activities.

Hands-On Sensory Play

Sensory bins are great learning activities for preschoolers, but don’t think that’s the limit for fun sensory play. Playdough is another perfect sensory activity to help develop fine motor skills. In the fall, you can make playdough in fall colors like red, orange, yellow, or brown. Adding pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon for pumpkin or apple pie playdough adds in another sense to experience. Your preschooler can use the fall playdough on its own or with sculpting toys. Or add in some additional skill building with fall-themed playdough mats.

Preschool Art Perfect for Fall

Most preschoolers really enjoy creating art. Some of my preschooler’s favorite art materials are markers, watercolor paints, and chalk pastels. You could make it as easy as setting out some paper and materials to draw or paint with, letting your child create anything they’d like. However, if you’d rather find something more detailed, these preschool chalk pastel lessons are really fun and easy. In fact, you can also find lessons there for the entire family. My kids and I love to sit and paint with chalk pastels together. We also really enjoy using the watercolor lessons we’ve found at Lily and Thistle.

Fall Crafts for Preschool

Nature supplies plenty of materials for fun preschool crafts during fall. You and your preschooler can take a walk outside to collect leaves, pinecones or fall flowers to use in crafts. Your preschooler can sew autumn leaves to make a lovely garland or create other fall crafts with nature materials.

Fall Preschool Learning with Music

Along with art, most preschoolers also love music. Many cities offer Mommy and Me type preschool music classes. When my now teenagers were little, we were fortunate enough to find a really fun local class. However, finding music activities for my preschoolers to do at home has always been something I’ve had difficulty doing. Luckily for my current preschooler, I found Clap for Classics. They just created The Four Seasons: Music and More Preschool Curriculum. My preschooler loves the video lessons full of seasonal music, including music by Vivaldi. Not only does this include music, but there are also video lessons and activities for STEM, poetry, and art.

Fall Learning Activities

If you enjoy using hands-on activities with your preschooler or have them use activity sheets, change them up in the fall by including some that have more of a fall theme to them. Fall-themed activities for preschoolers add in a special touch your preschooler will enjoy as they work on literacy and math skills. My preschooler loves using little plastic apples, pumpkins, acorns, and leaves to use as markers for the correct answer with this fall bundle of counting cards or fall alphabet matching cards.

Fantastic Fall Field Trip Ideas for Your Preschooler

Fall is such a great time to get outside and enjoy nature with your preschooler! You don’t even need to go far to enjoy aspects of fall. Your backyard or a local park with trees is sure to delight your preschooler as you observe fallen leaves.

Fall field trips with preschoolers can include:

• Go apple picking and then do a taste test of your favorites at home. Use an apple as a guide for a chalk pastel or watercolor painting.
• Visit a pumpkin patch to choose the perfect pumpkin. Grab acrylic paints and let your preschooler add a fun face or just lots of color to a pumpkin you found.
• Visit a local farm with a sunflower area or grab one at the grocery store. Get one to bring home and let your child dissect the sunflower to see the different parts. Guess how many seeds there are and help your child group them into groups of 10. Draw or paint a sunflower picture.
• With so much to harvest, try to visit a local farm that allows visitors in the fall. Your child can learn how the farm prepares for the winter, what harvesting needs done in fall, and may even get to check out farm animals.
• Take a nature walk. You can do this at a local park, a larger state park, or even around your neighborhood if it’s wooded. Look for signs of animals preparing for winter, try to find different colors of leaves, or see what flowers grow in fall.

To sum up

Teaching your preschooler in the fall is so fun with all the great resources available! Be sure to spend lots of time outside enjoying the changing weather. Find wonderful books about apples, pumpkins, and fall leaves to cuddle up and read together. Don’t forget to add fall colors and themes to your child’s learning and play as well. And a piece of apple pie is a lovely addition to any day, of course! Take advantage of all the wonderful aspects of fall to create fun and engaging fall activities for preschoolers to enjoy.