Fall Play with Leaves : What Nature Can Teach Us

Fall leaves are magical for so many reasons. There is something about a big pile of leaves that is irresistible to kids. They can bring out the kid in adults and always spell fun. There are so many learning opportunities for both kid’s bodies and minds hidden within this addictive fall play. Sure, kids will get dirty, but isn’t that what bathes are for, right?

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Getting outside and getting dirty is one of the best ways for kids to learn. After all, most germs in the wild are beneficial for children’s immune systems. It is more important to get this outdoor time as the temperatures drop and cold and flu season starts. When kids get outside, they get a break from the recycled air indoors and revitalize their systems with the crisp autumn air. Their immune systems will thank you!

Gross Motor and Fine Motor Development during Fall Play

Leaves check all the boxes for both gross motor skills and fine motor development. The running, jumping, rolling, and throwing of leaves helps kids learn better balance and strengths their entire bodies. Then, they have to switch gears and use their fine motor skills to gently pick up a single leaf. For my oldest, I will sometimes give him some kid’s tweezers to up the challenge a little when trying to pick up one leaf.

Sensory Benefits to Leaves

Fall play with leaves benefits also kid’s sensory systems in so many ways. Here are just a few.

Visual

Searching through leaves is a great activity since kids have to track their motions and try and spot whatever doesn’t belong in the leaf pile. They can improve their hand-eye coordination by tracking falling leaves and trying to catch them!

Smell

Those autumn smells are the best and are always strong in leaf piles. Exposing kids to a variety of smells helps develop and refine this sense.

Hearing

The crunch of the leaves is more than just a fun activity, it also helps kids hone listening skills and possibly figure out why different leaves might sound different. Kids can crumple leaves and explore the sounds that are created. Then, encourage them to slow down, be quiet, and listen to the wind rustle the leaves. This is a great way to practice mindfulness.

Touch

This is a big one with fall play in leaves. Explore the different textures of all the kinds of leaves and feel the difference between a leaf just fell compared to one that has been on the ground for some time.

Pressure

Another important aspect of a child’s sensory system is activated during fall play with leaves and that is the way that their body reacts to pressure. Their bodies and their brains have to learn how much force is needed to pick up a giant leaf pile versus a single leaf. As kids jump and roll around, their joints are strengthened, and learn how to respond to this pressure. This type of “heavy play” is essential for their proper development.

Learning a Sense of Self through Fall Play

Leaf play can even help kids become more aware of their bodies. When my 2-year-old first walked into a giant leaf pile, he got nervous. it was almost like he wasn’t sure how to walk out of it since he could see his feet.

“Feet…where go?”

The smile on his face when he realized they were simply buried and that he could walk through the leaves was priceless. He learned new confidence and a new sense of awareness simply by learning to walk through leaves.

Fast forward to my 4.5-year-old. He loves being buried in the leaves. We turned this into a game to encourage this type of body awareness. I will bury him almost entirely and then he names any parts of his body that were not covered. It is a fun way to get him to think about his different body parts and have a great time in the process.

Now that you know the amazing physical benefits of fall play with leaves, I’m going to turn to some activities that will hopefully inspire you to get outside to learn through play with fall leaves.

Fall Play Ideas with Leaves

Sorting and Comparing

Leaves come in so many different varieties, shapes, colors, textures, and sizes. This provides endless ways to categorize and sort them. Kids run around the yard, park, or woods and collect as many leaves as they want. Together, come up with some categories and sort the leaves into piles. This teaches kids to compare and contrast to look for the similarities and differences between the leaves they collected. The best part about this activity is that you can explore different aspects of the leaves by sorting them over and over according to new categories.

Bonus: Count the various piles to see how many leaves are in each pile to add a little early math! You can even use these piles to do basic addition and subtraction. For example, if you count 3 leaves in one pile and 2 leaves in the other, how many leaves do you have altogether?

Leaf Rubbings

An activity for the little artist and a great way to explore texture in leaves. It is also a fun way to take some fall play indoors. After gathering different types of leaves, place them under a piece of paper and use the side of a crayon to make a leaf impression. It’s like watching magic and is a really fun way to combine art with outdoor play.

Check out more nature crafts for kids, from suncatchers to tree crafts.

Make Leaf Confetti

For great sensory fun, gather some dry leaves and use your hands to crumple leaves. An alternate option is to practice scissor skills by cutting some fresh leaves into small pieces to make some leaf confetti. Celebrate all the fall play by throwing the confetti into the air and watching as the wind takes it everywhere (possibly into your face). Similes guaranteed.

Fall Play Outdoor Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are a fun way for kids to sharpen their observational and visual skills. Hide some toys in a big leaf pile and have kids dig and search to find them all. This is a great opportunity to practice language skills as well since kids can name what they find in the leaf pile. Find ideas for scavenger hunt themes and more about this fall play idea here.

Dramatic Fall Play

One of our favorite imaginative fall play ideas is to build fairy houses with sticks and leaves. Stick the leaves onto sticks to create little flags or cover the outside of a mini stick hut with the leaves to provide protection. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination is.

Responsibility through Dramatic Fall Play

Ever notice that kids always want to copy you? That means mimicking both housework and yardwork. I like to encourage kids to “help” even if it isn’t really helpful. This teaches them about real life and the responsibilities that come with it. The trick is to do it in a way that is still fun. Dramatic play in fall can be as easy as raking leaves. My boys have their kid-sized rakes and will practice raking the leaves into a pile. It is a fun, imaginative way for kids to play and I know they are learning valuable skills.

Alternate: If you don’t have a lot of leaves in your yard, you can adapt this activity indoors by using scraps of paper or cut-out leaves and having kids rake them into the middle of a taped square on the floor.

Here are some chore ideas for 2-year-olds to help with responsibility.

Fall Craft to Learn about Seasons

Trees are such a great indicator of the changes in seasons. They go from beautiful and green to a mosaic of color in the fall, only to lose all their leaves in preparation for new growth and flowering in spring. In this tree craft, you have the opportunity to create a visual representation of the seasons.
Fall: use orange and red tissue paper to create an autumn tree.
Winter: pull cotton balls apart to create “snow” that we can glue to the bare branches.
Spring: add pops of colorful tissue paper to represent the flowers that are starting to bloom as everything comes back to life.
Summer: green and bountiful! Switch it all out for a beautiful green tree!

Use this fall craft to spark conversation about the natural world and explain the changes that we all feel as seasons change.

Fall play is a great way to talk about life cycles.

I’ve talked about the benefits of composting with kids and leaves provide an excellent opportunity to further that discussion. Even if you don’t have a compost, you can explore life cycles by watching what happens to a pile of leaves throughout the year. If you have a small amount of chicken wire or another type of fencing, create a small circle and fill it with leaves. Then, sit back and watch as they slowly compress and decompose. It is a great lesson on how all life returns to the earth.

This is the circle of life, visualized, in a way that is appropriate for kids.