What’s on Our Shelf: Acorn and Pumpkin Theme

If you’re looking for tons of fall activity inspiration, check out a few of these posts! Sensory Bins, Active Learning Journal Pages, Gross Motor

Pumpkin Pumpkin big and round; pumpkin pumpkin on the ground! Fall is in full swing over here and I couldn’t be more excited to share some wonderful fall activities.

Get ready for a mixture of fine motor work, loose parts play, matching games, and counting.

I saw these acorn table scatter at Dollar Tree in July. I grabbed them immediately because I cannot turn down themed items that can be used in many different ways! In this set up we’ll be practicing scooping and pouring with and without water. Pouring is a long standing work in Montessori classrooms. It teaches children capacity while working practical life skills.

Your child can either pour from pitcher to pitcher or from pitcher into the bowl.

This set up is so simple. You don’t even need pumpkin cutouts, it can be recreated on small pieces of paper. Pretty self explanatory: Write numbers on the pumpkin stems then have your child add counters to match. For younger children you could add a large dot to place each counter on to work one to one correspondence. Since this is for an older toddler, I only put the amount of counters needed in the basket for a self correcting activity.

During our apple theme, this fun game was a huge hit for both of my nanny kids. They loved figuring out how to make the tubes stand up and then add the apples on top. This time around we’ll try pumpkins, obviously!

My charges are really getting excited about using three part nomenclature cards! We have two sets available, one is fall words and the other is the life cycle of a pumpkin. Both of these were found here.

I made this amazing Jack O’lantern matching game last year. It didn’t get touched very often, so I’m excited to see what a year can do for development!

I’ve been seeing so many different ways to use mirrors in fine motor and loose parts play, I knew I needed to add them to this month’s shelf. Mirrors add a new element to loose parts play. Kids love seeing their reflection while playing!

My charges love magnets in all forms, I love an activity that needs no directions from me!

I made these lacing ribbons during our apple theme to practice sewing. For this theme, I cut two slits into a few fake leaves.

Our oak trees are over flowing with acorns right now. Add in a few days of rain and now the ground is covered with them! We collected a pocket full (mine!) of baby acorns to crack with our amazing nut cracker. If you don’t have one of these tools you could easily use a small hammer, lemon or garlic press! The fine motor benefits of nut cracking are huge. Your child will need to use maximum effort to turn the nail to crush the nut!