Fall Leaves Math Activity for Kindergarten and Preschool

This fall leaves math activity is a simple way to do a fun fall learning activity! If you have a preschool or kindergarten age child, this is a wonderfully fun math game that will keep them entertained for quite a while.

With different ways to play, kids are able to get a lot out of this fall math activity! We recently updated this post to include a free printable to make this fall leave math activity even EASIER for you to play with your kids!

No printer? No problem! We also included instructions for making this game without a printer. 🙂

My 4 year old is SO full of energy – what that means for me is that finding activities to hold her attention for more than 5-10 minutes can be tough.

I’m happy to report that this Fall Leaves Math Game kept her busy for a FULL 30 minutes!!

That’s a win right there, mama!

Plus, it’s crazy easy to put together, and you can do it with or without a printer. There are 2 different levels of proficiency so it’s a math game you can use over and over!

Fall Leaves Math Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten

One to one counting, number recognition, color recognition, pencil grip strengthening, and scissor skills… this easy fall math activity has it all!

If you are playing with a child old enough to use scissors and help you, this activity is even more fun as they can cut out their own leaves.

My 4-year-old spent between 5-10 minutes coloring the leaves from the printable while I numbered each clothespin. Then we sat together and cut out the leaves.

Since my preschooler is not fast with scissors, I cut more of the leaves out than she did. It was a really sweet time sitting together and chatting while we cut the leaves out!

All in all, we spent over 30 minutes creating and playing this fall math activity!

Step One:

If using the free printable, print it out and have your child color the leaves. You can let them go crazy and make the leaves every color if you want!

My preschooler colored one page lots of colors and then we read a book about leaves changing. For the second page of leaves, I asked her to choose crayons that were the colors she recognized from the book.

If you don’t have a printer, draw leaf shapes on various fall colored construction paper. Green, red, yellow, and orange work nicely but brown is a realistic addition too!

Don’t stress too much about the drawing! Originally, I drew rough outlines. They aren’t perfect by any means, and they were still super fun!

Here is one of my daughter’s pages all colored!

Step Two:

Cut out the leaves. Like I said above, my daughter and I sat and chatted while we cut out the leaves. It was a sweet time!

If you aren’t using the printable, you’ll also need to “dot” all the leaves (each with a different number of dots).

If you are doing this fall math activity for kindergarten, I would do at least numbers 1-12. If you are using this fall math activity for preschool, numbers 1-10 will be plenty to start! My preschooler would be too “taxed” past 10 the first few times.

I love the beautiful imperfections of the leaves that were cut by a precious 4 year old!

Step Three:

Label your clothespins with the numbers 1 through 10 (or higher if you are using higher numbered leaves), and on the back match the color to the leaf color that has that same number of dots. If you let the kids color a lot of colors, you will have a lot of colored clothespins ha!

For example, if you have a yellow leaf with 7 dots then you would write the number 7 on one side of the clothes pin and color a square of yellow on the other side.

This would allow your child to either just match color to color if they are very young, or to use the colors as an answer check.

They could count the dots, find the number and then flip it over to make sure the color matches the leaf they have found. Fun!

Fall Leaves Math Activities: Different Ways to Play

Once you have all the pieces finished, it’s time to play!

As I mentioned, you can play this math game in a couple of different ways that will allow you to fit this to your child’s level.

1. Matching Colors: Flip the clothes pins and the leaves over on their color only sides and you can let your child match them that way while they are learning their number shapes.

2. Matching Dots to Numbers: You can help your child work on their one-to-one counting and number recognition by flipping the dotted side of the leaves, and the number sides of the clothes pins over for a second round of game play!

3. For advanced learners: Make a second set of clothespins 1-10. Have the child form number bonds that equal the number of dots on the leaf. For example, if a leaf has six dots, the child could use a 3 and a 3 or a 5 and a 1 or a 4 and a 2!

Storing This Math Activity for Kindergarten or Preschoolers

Once you’re done playing, you can store all the pieces in a quart ziploc baggie and label the front, if desired.

I keep it with my big kids’ math manipulatives and then when it’s time for the older kids to do math, my daughter has an activity right there, ready to go!

Grab Your Fall Leaves Math Activity Download

This fall leaves math activity is part of our member’s only library! And it’s completely free to become a member! Whoo-hoo! There are 4 pages in this download – two different shapes of leaves and some blank leaves in both shapes!