Fall Curriculum, Day Ten

Today is a sensory extravaganza! First, you can do a cool fine motor and sensory activity with your students. Trace different leaf shapes onto sandpaper. Have the students feel the sandpaper and talk about the texture. The students can choose which shape of leaf they would like to have, then cut out the leaves. I haven’t talked about this yet, but did you know that you can get switch-operated scissors? Ablenet sells them! They are battery-operated scissors that you hook up to a single-hit switch (such as a Big Red or Jellybean). Students with physical disabilities can hit the switch to power the scissors while an adult or another student holds the scissors and the paper. This allows the student to be involved with the cutting of their own art project! I digress…..once the students have cut out their leaves, give them a cinnamon stick. Talk about the smell of the cinnamon stick, then have them rub the stick all over their sandpaper leaf. The cinnamon stick will leave a light coating of brown color on the sandpaper, as well as a wonderful smell!

For a cooking activity today, you will extend your cinnamon smell theme. Make oatmeal from scratch (it doesn’t really matter if you use old-fashioned, quick-cooking, or instant oatmeal). Work together to pour and mix the ingredients and talk to the students as you cook the oats (if you have a hot plate or access to a stovetop-if you don’t, you’ll have to settle for a microwave!). When the oatmeal is cooked, let the students look at it and stir it and discuss how it has changed from before it was cook. After it has had time to cool a bit, put some in a bowl for each student then let them top it as they would like-with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins or fruit (check your child care licensure guidelines-there are some restrictions about raisins, etc. due to a risk of choking), canned pumpkin, butter, maple syrup….the sky’s the limit! Talk about the smells and tastes of the oatmeal.

Connect your sensory table to your activities by filling it with cinnamon or apple pie scented potpourri. You can also make sensory jars with film canisters (does anyone still have any of those?), baby food containers, or tiny food containers. Put a little bit of cinnamon oil or cinnamon potpourri oil or spray on a cotton ball and place it in the jar. You can also use vanilla, lemon, orange, strawberry, peppermint, and other extracts, scented home oils, and even “stinky” things like garlic and onion powder. Store them in a baby wipes container or a small box. Pass the jars around and let the students decide which ones they like the best!

Fall Curriulum, Day Nine

Today you will again actually use fall materials as your art “utensils.” Have you ever realized that leaves make great stamps? Put out paper plates with paint poured in them and have your students press their leaves in the paint then press them onto paper. You can let the students use Boardmaker symbols to choose the color of paper that they would like; let them use multiple colors of paint placed in the center of the table. Many of your students will choose to use their leaves as “paintbrushes,” and that’s okay too.

Today’s math activity is leaf graphing. Use your classroom graph; put four different types of leaves in a bag and put one of each kind across the bottom of your graph. Have each student pull a leaf out of the bag and tape it to the correct column on the graph. Discuss which leaf there was the most of and least of. Have the students vote on their favorite type of leaf.

For science today, compare dry leaves and healthy leaves. Let the students feel the leaves and look at the leaves. Let them crunch up the dry leaves and pull the healthy leaves apart. If you want, you can write down the students’ observations as they talk about the leaves.

Fall Curriculum, Day Eight

For art today, you will use a “fall material” to create your art rather than creating a fall-themed piece. Use acorns gathered on the playground or from someone’s yard. Tape a sheet of paper to a tray or one-half of a shirt box for each student. Use Boardmaker symbols to have each student choose a paint color, then put a little bit of paint in the center of the paper. Put a few acorns in the box and have the students roll the box around to paint with the acorns. If you want to add another element to the activity, you can have the students cut the paper into an acorn shape either before or after painting.

For fine motor, give each student a toilet paper or paper towel tube. Have them cut strips a couple of inches down from the top to make tree branches. Students will tear or cut pieces of tissue paper or construction paper in fall colors and dip them in glue, then stick them to the toilet paper tube.

For science today, put water in your sensory table. Talk to your students about leaves and acorns and ask whether they think that the leaves or acorns will float. If you want to make this activity a little more “formal”, you can make a t-chart (2 column chart) and list students who vote “yes” and “no”. After everyone has had a chance to vote, test their theories by putting leaves and acorns in the water before opening the sensory table for free play.

Fall Curriculum, Day Seven

Today, take your students on a nature walk and have them gather leaves, twigs, acorns, small branches, and anything else that says “fall.” You can either give each student his or her own bag to gather items, or put everything in one bag and then put large bowls or boxes out on the table and fill them with the items.

Give each student a large sheet of construction paper in the color of the student’s choice (use Boardmaker color symbols to choose, of course). Have the students squeeze or paint glue all over the paper, then arrange the items on the paper however they wish. After the glue has dried, cover the paper with Con-tact paper.

For science today, have the students make predictions about what the inside of an acorn will look like. Use hammers or rocks to break open acorns (one per student) and examine the inside. Put acorns in your sensory table as well.

For math, have the students sort a variety of leaves by size. Higher-functioning students can put the leaves in order from biggest to smallest (or vice-versa), while lower-functioning students can sort the leaves into “big and small” piles.

Fall Curriculum, Day Six

Well, now we are foraying into week two of our “Fall Curriculum.” This week we will focus a little more on some of the things that we associate with fall besides leaves and color changes. Today, we are talking about squirrels. If you can find a book about squirrels, great! I found one called The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri that looks both informational and entertaining….I haven’t read it yet, but it looks promising. Talk to your students about how squirrel hide food away for the winter and make a list of some of the foods that squirrels eat.

For art, have your students make a squirrel mask by painting a paper plate with holes cut out of it brown and gluing on ears, paws, a nose, and maybe even fur. Have them cut out an acorn shape and glue it into the paws. The Boardmaker symbols that you will need today are: paint, paintbrush, glue, paper, and scissors, as well as colors if you are providing different shades of paint for your activity.

For math, cut out the shapes of several different types of nuts as well as acorns. Give each student several in a bag. Count the number of each nut that each student has and color your classroom graph accordingly. If you don’t have any nut allergies in your classrooms, you could use real nuts, but I very strongly caution you here; nuts are an issue not only because of allergies but also because of the choking hazard. I would stick with paper nuts! You can also use your cutouts for patterning. I would recommend cutting them out of construction paper or cardstock and laminating them before use for durability.

Visuals in the Inclusive Classroom 101

I would say that the most important visual supports in a classroom including young children with disabilities are the picture schedules. I like to have a long strip for each student hanging in a central location so that students can go up and check to see what the next activity is. Picture schedules may include Boardmaker pictures or photos, depending on the level of abstract understanding that the student has.



The "I want" picture can be used in almost any setting. Here it is shown requesting Goldfish crackers. It can be used during centers, meals, group time, etc. This is a visual to prompt verbalization.



These are examples of the pictures that I use during art time. These are printed from Boardmaker. I like to have a set of the pictures of art materials for each student so that we don't have to pass the pictures around between multiple students. I keep a set of color pictures for each staff member so that we can each go around and show students their color choices. This gets the job done much more quickly than if only one person does it.




The "first/then" picture is a great way to remind students that they have to work in order to play...or do whatever it is that you ask them in order to get the reward that they seek. Remember that rewarding is not bribery. We are rewarded for working by receiving a paycheck-students should be rewarded for their work in an appropriate way.



Sometimes pictures can be used to promote appropriate behaviors, such as the "don't cry" and "quiet" pictures shown here. Be careful, though. I actually had a student once who would cry in order to get the "don't cry" picture. The SLP and I came up with a different system....we would show him a picture when he wasn't crying that said "be happy." He could only have the picture if he was happy...he even carried a small version in his pocket. If he cried, he had to surrender the "be happy" picture. This greatly decreased the crying!




Predictability is great for students with disabilities; it gives them a feeling of security and control. I kept a schedule hanging on the wall where we did circle time. Before each circle (I had 3 per day-morning meeting, storytime, and music time) I would put up a schedule showing my students exactly what order the circle was going to go in, including when they would be rewarded for appropriate behavior (a reward would be something like bubbles, throwing a ball to them, or getting to hit the switch on a switch toy). I also kept a set of behavior pictures in the area so that they could be quickly grabbed to quell inappropriate behaviors.

Fall Curriculum, Day Five

Today is “cooking” day. It’s not easy to find snack ideas for “fall” that don’t involve gooping up something with orange icing….so instead of going for the fall theme you can emphasize the leaves instead. Supply a variety of “leaves”-a couple of types of lettuce, spinach, cabbage, perhaps some turnip greens, Swiss chard, kale….whatever you can find at your supermarket. Let the children help wash them and tear them. If you have access to a salad spinner, this is a super-fun way to get the kids involved!

Put each type of leaf in a separate bowl to begin with and have the students sample the leaves individually, then let them mix them into a salad. During the activity or later during circle time, have the students vote on what their favorite type of leaf was. Graph this on a premade graph using chart paper (this is a great time to use that “all-purpose graph” that I mentioned earlier in the week!). This is a great math, science, social studies, health and nutrition, and oral motor activity!

For those of you who have picky eaters in your class, you could still do this activity and let the students who won’t eat the “leaves” choose their favorite leaf based on its texture, shape, color…whatever they like about it. An alternative snack could be a smoothie made with orange juice and whatever fruits you want to add, so at least it has a “fall color” connection

For math, let your students do leaf patterning. Provide sentence strips with leaf cutouts in different colors patterned in whatever ways you wish-by shape, color, etc. Students can either extend or copy the pattern, whatever they are able to do. This is a great time to incorporate discrete trial teaching, working on visual discrimination, colors, patterning, and one-to-one correspondence.

Fall Curriculum, Day Four

Today’s activity will not use the leaves that you have collected. Instead, the children will be making leaves of their own.

Have the children choose the shape of leaf that they would like to use. Enlarge the leaf shape to fit onto a 9 x 12 sheet of construction paper and trace the leaves onto white construction paper (or have the children trace them if they are able). Have the students cut out the leaves; precut for students who are not physically able to manipulate scissors. Remember to work with your occupational therapist to find scissors that will work for students who have the potential to learn to cut-the world of scissors goes way beyond your average school safety scissors!

Once the leaves have been cut, let the students choose a painting utensil-this is another great time to use Boardmaker to make visuals*. Let each student choose the color of paint that he/she wants to use and paint the leaf. Once the leaves have dried, hang them on a classroom “tree” on the door or in the hallway.

Today, fill your sensory table with some sort of harvest-themed item-deer corn, bird seed, straw, Indian corn, small pumpkins, more leaves, etc. As an alternative to the sensory table, you could make fall-colored playdough and scent it with pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. (be sure to check for allergies…I have been hearing of more cinnamon allergies recently!).

A great science activity is to put some leaves in a plastic zipper bag. Find a nice, fresh leaf-not one that has dried out or gone soggy. Put one leaf in each bag and find several different places to put them-in the window, in the dark, on the counter, outside….take a picture of each leaf on the first day, then check back every few days to see how the leaf has changed. Hang the pictures of the leaves together and compare how different the changes are in the leaves that are hanging in different locations as well as how the leaves change over the day. If your students can, have them make predictions about what will happen and then compare their predictions to what actually happened.

*For art activities, I like to have a set of visuals for each child depicting each tool that would be used in art. This way, each child has a picture to exchange or use eyegaze to make a choice or a visual prompt to help them verbalize their needs. Some of the ones that I included were: paint, paintbrush, glue, crayons, scissors, paper, playdough. I kept them in an envelope with the child's name on it, then before school I would pick out the ones that were needed for the day and place them in a small (approx. 4" x 4") basket labeled with the child's name. The baskets stacked together and were easy to pull out and quickly pass out when it was art time; doing this kept the choices from becoming overwhelming to the students.

Fall Curriculum, Day Three

Today, you will use the leaves that you gathered from the playground again. If they have gotten “depleted” from play, science, and art activities, you may want to gather more on the playground. Have each child choose a few leaves and tape them to a sheet of paper of his or her choice. Once the leaves have been taped down, allow the children to choose one or two colors of paint (use your “I want” boards and Boardmaker color symbols for nonverbal students). Once the students have received their paint, give everyone brushes, rollers, or sponges and allow them to paint over their leaves. You will want to take the leaves off of the paper pretty quickly so that they don’t dry to the paper; voila! You have a leaf “resist” painting.

For a fine motor activity today, give each student a tree trunk, either precut or traced on a sheet of brown paper so that they can cut it out. Have the students glue the tree trunk to a background (e.g. a blue sheet of construction paper) and then have them tear or cut construction paper in fall colors into small bits and glue on and around the tree trunk to look like a tree that has lost its leaves.

For a “social studies” activity, you could practice raking leaves, either on the playground with real leaves, or in the classroom with fake leaves. Talk about the fact that there are people who do that as part of their job, but that most people rake their own leaves. Let each child have a turn; students who are not able to manipulate the rake independently can have physical assistance. I would recommend using a toy rake or a child-sized rake with a non-wooden handle to avoid splinters.

Please note that while some fine motor activities could also be considered “art”, fine motor activities are focused on specific skills using the small muscles of the hand, such as cutting, squeezing glue, and using a pincer grasp. Of course, art also addresses these skills, but fine motor activities tend to be more rigid with less choice involved in the finished product; art activities allow for more freedom and creative expression.

Also-this weekend I am planning to post some pictures of visuals that I use, such as a first/then board and an “I want” board to give a concrete example behind my suggestions!

Fall Curriculum, Day two

For day two, you are just extending the activities from day one! On the playground, have your students look for acorns today. Put the acorns in your tactile bin with some leaves and straw or Easter grass.

For art today, have the students make a leaf suncatcher. Cut the outline of a leaf-any shape-from a 9 x 12 sheet of construction paper in a fall color. Let the students choose the colors that they want. Glue the outline-NOT the leaf cutout-onto wax paper. The idea is to have a large surface area of wax paper in the center of the leaf to stick tissue paper. Provide tissue paper in a variety of fall colors and have the students cut or tear the paper into small pieces. After they have torn the paper, they will then squeeze glue all over their wax paper and put the tissue inside of the leaf. After the glue has dried, run the wax paper through a laminator, cover it with Con-tact paper, or glue another sheet of wax paper on top. After everything is covered and dry, you can cut out the outline and hang it in the window. If you have students who cannot handle a bottle of glue, put their leaf outline on Con-tact paper instead of wax paper. The student can drop the tissue onto the wax paper and it will stick without glue.

For a great but simple fall snack, provide apple slices and dry orange gelatin in small cups for dipping. The moisture from the apples will help the gelatin stick and it tastes great. FYI, this is great in any flavor at any time….I just thought orange gelatin would be great for fall!

For science today, have the students sort some leaves and let each student choose a leaf. Have the students compare their leaves and discuss who has the smallest and largest leaves. If you have students who can understand the concept of measurement, use a ruler to measure the leaves. Talk about the different colors and how different trees produce leaves of different shapes.

Fall Curriculum Activities, Day One

Begin your Fall curriculum by taking students on a nature walk. Look around at all of the changing colors. Take some bags along and have the students gather leaves (try to encourage them to get dry-not soggy-leaves!). When you get back to the classroom, have the students sort the leaves to practice visual discrimination. They could sort them by shape, color, or texture. Use a premade graph* to graph how many of each different type, color, etc. you found.

Let each student choose several leaves to use for today’s art activity: leaf rubbings. Help the students put the leaves down on their table, tray, etc. Let the students help you pull tape from the roll to tape construction paper on top of the leaves. Allow the students to choose which Fall color they want to use for their art. Remember, for students who can talk, your goal is to get them to actually say what color they want, not just point! Try using an “I want” board-write “I want _______” on a piece of cardstock, laminate, and put a piece of Velcro on it. You can put a picture of the student’s choice in the blank and show them the board to prompt them to say, “I want orange.” Students who are non-verbal can point or use picture exchange to make a choice, and students who have limited use of their hands/arms can use eye gaze to make a choice-just be sure that you use adequate spacing of the pictures or objects so that you can tell what the child is actually looking at!

Next, let the children choose several crayons. Fat, stubby crayons with the paper peeled off work best for leaf rubbings. It may even be good to melt some crayons into muffin pans to make jumbo crayons for students who have a lot of fine motor difficulty. Again, use visuals to allow students to make their choices. This is not about making things easy; it’s about teaching children communication skills and allowing them to have some control over their environment!

To make leaf rubbings, students just rub their crayons all over the paper taped over their leaves. Students with physical disabilities affecting their upper bodies will obviously need some assistance. The adult that is helping the child can allow the student to show them by eye gaze (or tell them if possible) where they would like to color on their paper, and then the adult can provide hand-over-hand assistance as long as it is comfortable to the child.

After making their leaf rubbings, students can choose where to hang their artwork up in the classroom or hallway and help the teacher hang it.

For another fine motor activity, cut out and laminate leaf patterns on card stock. Punch holes around the edges and have the students lace the cards with shoestrings. Each child can have his/her own lacing card or a classroom supply can be available so that the children have access to different leaves throughout the unit.

*I LOVE graphing activities. To make impromptu graphing possible, make a large grid on a large sheet of chart paper; leave all the spaces blank. Laminate the grid. Keep a supply of dry erase markers and Post-It notes in your classroom. Voila-instant graph! Dry erase marker can be easily erased from laminated paper using a baby wipe.

Curriculum: Autumn/Fall

Books about Fall:

Seasons Board Book by Chris L. Demarest
Fall (the Four Seasons) by Maria Ruis
One Fall Day by Molly Bang
Here Comes Spring….and Summer and Fall and Winter by Mary Elizabeth Murphy
It’s Fall (Celebrate the Seasons) by Linda Glaser
Mouse’s First Fall by Lauren Thompson and Buket Erdogan
Fall is Not Easy by Marty Kelley
Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk and Sherry Neidigh
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Fall Songs

“Autumn Leaves” (tune: “London Bridges”)

Autumn Leaves are falling down, (hold hands in the air and float them down like leaves)
Falling down, falling down
Autumn leaves are falling down,
Falling to the ground.

Sweep the leaves and put them here, (pretend to sweep and place leaves in a file)
Put them here, put them here!
Sweep the leaves and put them here!
Welcome, Autumn!

Jump right in and have some fun, (stand up and pretend to jump in a pile of leaves)
Have some fun, have some fun!
Jump right in and have some fun,
Welcome, Autumn!

“Leaves are Falling” (tune: “Frere Jacques”)

Leaves are falling, (either use hands or real/artificial leaves to float to the ground)
Leaves are falling,
All around,
All around!
Autumn winds are blowing,
All the leaves are falling,
To the ground,
To the ground!

“A-C-O-R-N” (tune: “BINGO”)

There is a nut that squirrels eat,
Squirrels eat, squirrels eat!
There is a nut that squirrels eat,
And acorn is its name, oh!
A-C-O-R-N, A-C-O-R-N, A-C-O-R-N,
And acorn is its name, oh!

As you sing the verses, replace each letter with the word “crunch!” instead of a clap.
An optional activity is to have a squirrel hand puppet or paper puppet on a popsicle stick to “eat” either a real or paper acorn or one of the letters from the word acorn as the song progresses. Allow the children to take turns crunching the acorn.

Center Modifications

Tactile/sand/water table:

*Real or artificial leaves
*Small branches (have students help you gather them)
*Straw or yellow or orange Easter grass
*Red, yellow, orange, and brown shredded paper
*acorns
*Red, yellow, or orange colored water and artificial leaves

Homeliving/Dramatic Play Center:

*Buckets/bags of artificial leaves
*Toy rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows
*Work gloves
*Lightweight jackets
*Clothes for doing “yard work”

Block Center

*Lincoln Logs
*Buckets of shredded paper
*Unit blocks
*Forest animal toys (deer, squirrels, bears, etc.)

Art Center

*Paints in fall colors
*Magazines with fall pictures (leaves, etc.)
*Playdough in a variety of fall colors with “fall” scents, such as pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, vanilla
*A variety of leaves, acorns, and sticks for painting
*Shirt boxes for rolling acorns in paint
*Red, yellow, brown, orange construction paper and shredded paper
*Cookie cutters in a variety of fall shapes (leaves, acorns, squirrels, etc.)

Boardmaker* Symbols to Print (or pictures to search on Internet if you don’t have Boardmaker) and Sign Language to Learn*

*Leaf
*Tree
*Fall/Autumn
*Acorn
*Squirrel
*Cool/Cold
*Wind
*Colors: Red, yellow, brown, green, orange

*If you do not have the Boardmaker-Dynamically Speaking Pro software by Mayer-Johnson available at your school, I recommend that you speak with your principal/school director about obtaining it. It is not terribly expensive and is absolutely irreplaceable for making visual symbols, picture schedules, and social stories-both for children with disabilities and without.

*For simple preschool signs, I recommend the book Sign With Your Baby by Joseph Garcia