Fall Tree Craft For Preschoolers
We are ‘falling’ for fall alphabet activities! This easy fall tree craft will build your little ones’ letter recognition and upper to lower case discrimination.
There’s nothing like fun back to school crafts when fall is in the air. This alphabet tree craft is one of my favorites because it combines fine motor skills practice through tear art with the important work of learning letters.
When you engage little hands in learning, the brain is sure to make great learning connections! This makes it win-win in my book!
This is a must-have craft to add to your list of fall activities for preschoolers.
When fall finally shows up in my neck of the woods, I can’t wait to drag out the long sleeves and head outside for as much of our day as possible. The warm colors and the gorgeous weather that ends the long summer days can create a total (and amazing) shift in my mood and disposition.
We love going on nature walks in the woods behind our house! We look for all sorts of wonder and learn more about various insects, creatures, and plant life.
Incorporating nature walks into your fall study is a wonderful thing to do for preschoolers, whether at home or school.
Nature walks are a wonderful catalyst for learning and exploration for curious little minds. You can create crafts based on what you see in nature or even based on things you collect with your preschoolers.
This Fall tree craft for preschoolers is top of my list. It incorporates the beautiful trees and changing leaves we see outside all around us during this special time of year.
Preschoolers get excited making connections about the tree craft they are completing and the beautiful trees that they just saw outside during a nature walk or outdoor play.
A bonus is that when the craft is completed, preschoolers can hang it proudly in their homes. While they are looking at their special creations, they can also review all the letters they matched up. It offers continuous learning that the kids are proud of. If you ask me, it is a perfect fall activity.
Speaking of perfect fall activities, I love helping make planning easier for parents and teachers, whether that be at home or in the classroom. My Cozy Autumn Literacy and Math Centers will certainly make your fall days better with ready-to-go falltastic centers! Be sure to check them out!
Why Do This Alphabet Tree Craft
This beautiful fall tree develops letter recognition and capital and lowercase discrimination all rolled into adorable display-worthy art! It’s one of our favorite fall alphabet activities.
Preschoolers need lots and lots of letter recognition and discrimination practice. I particularly like when I can make it a hands-on experience like in the case of this fall tree craft.
This is a great activity for developing fine motor skills, as well. Fine motor skill development is crucial for toddlers and preschoolers.
They are a foundation for so many skills including self-care and writing skills. The more opportunities young children have to practice fine motor skills, the better!
I Invite more opportunities for tearing and ripping by giving my preschoolers additional colored paper and time to tear it into smaller pieces.
With assistance, students will learn where to best place their hands on the paper (the top edge) to make tearing the easiest, and where to place the rest of their fingers while tearing (tucked into the palm).
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How To Make The Alphabet Tree Craft
It’s a beautiful thing when art meets learning, and this is one of those fall alphabet activities that checks all the boxes! Perfect for young toddlers all the way to preschoolers, this easy-to-prep craft is a great introduction to fall.
Materials For Fall Craft
- red, yellow, orange, and brown construction paper
- one piece large white construction paper per child
- scissors or a paper cutter
- glue
- markers
How To Set Up The Craft
- Draw out a large tree shape on white construction paper.
- Next, use a marker to randomly write lowercase letters of the alphabet all around the tree branches. I chose to do all 26 lowercase letters on the base of the tree and invite my little guy to match the uppercase letters. You can choose to do it whichever way makes sense for your preschoolers. *Alternatively, you can work with your preschooler to use butcher paper for the tree branches and trunk, and tape/glue it down.
- Finally, cut red, yellow, orange, and brown construction paper into strips and write the upper case letters onto the strips with a marker. Be sure to leave enough space between the letters so that the children can tear them apart.
You are all set to craft with your preschoolers!
How To Make The Alphabet Tree Craft For Preschoolers
This fall tree craft is easy-breezy once it is all set up. The steps are simple.
The challenge comes in with your preschoolers matching the uppercase and lowercase letters. This is where all the great brain work will occur, with the added fun fine motor craft practice.
- Invite your child to tear apart the letters to make “leaves” and then match the leaves to the lower case letters on the tree.
- Glue the matching uppercase letters to the corresponding lowercase letters. Or if you’d like your little one to repeat this activity, save the leaves in a sandwich baggie to match again another day!
Your preschoolers can play this over and over again if you choose to save the leaves. It is a great hands-on way to practice letter recognition and uppercase and lowercase letter matching.
The best part about this fall alphabet activity is that it is suitable for even young toddlers. Too little for alphabet practice? Try colors! Allow little hands to tear and rip colored construction paper and glue it to the tree. Discuss the colors of the leaves and think of other same-colored objects.
Now, if you’re not crazy about the look of the torn construction paper to make the leaves, you can also use a cutting machine. I’ve done that in the past, but I love the added fine motor skill work for my preschoolers.
Alphabet Tree Activities
Changing leaves, apples, acorns and pine cones….trees are an important and beautiful part of fall. In a preschool classroom, alphabet is also a big part of fall, as we jump back into learning. So, it makes perfect sense to combine these two units of study. I would love to share with you some ways to extend this fall tree craft and also some other fun alphabet tree activities.
Ideas For Extension
There are a lot of learning opportunities rooted in this fun fall tree craft. Here are some of my favorite extension ideas:
- For students that are still working on letter identification and discrimination, have them match lowercase to lowercase (rather than uppercase to lowercase)
- To practice matching letters and sounds, use alphabet picture cards to match to the letters on the tree.
- For beginning letter matching and word work, have preschoolers (that are ready) match word cards to the letters on the tree.
- Focus on color matching instead of letters for toddlers or if you are working on colors with your preschoolers. You (or the kids) can glue down colored “leaves” and have the children place colored paper pieces or counters on matching leaves of the same color.
- Laminate the tree for use with playdough, dry erase markers, etc.
Other Alphabet Tree Ideas
Since we have clearly established that the alphabet AND trees are big part of fall preschool learning, I thought you might like to check out some other alphabet tree ideas!
- Fall Leaf Alphabet Letter Match
- Dot the Letter Apple Tree Activity
- Letter Matching Apple Tree Activity with Free Printable
- Fall Tree Roll and Cover Alphabet Game
Fall Books For Preschoolers
Reading to kids is so important, and I love mixing in seasonal books during circle time. We’ve hand-picked some of our fall and autumn favorites for you!
How To Teach About Fall To Preschoolers
Fall is full of preschool themes galore, from apples to pumpkins to leaves and life cycles. Consider a life cycles unit of an apple, pumpkin, or tree, perfect for including exciting science experiments with these natural elements. Since many areas may experience the leaves changing color or falling to the ground, studying leaves provides great learning activities for kids. Remember to use your 5 senses as you experience your fall preschool activities!
Fall (or autumn) is such a fun time of the year to teach preschoolers. Share that fall is one of the four seasons of the year and is the transition from the hot days of summer to cooler winter. In many parts of the world, the leaves on the trees will begin to change color and the temperature begins to grow colder. During the fall, animals will start to prepare themselves for winter.
There is so much fun learning to be had in this season known for pumpkins, trick-or-treating, and picking apples from apple trees. You can plan fun activities like a field trip to a pumpkin patch or apple orchard, or bring the fall-themed fun into the classroom! Explore the parts of a pumpkin and plant its seeds, then carve jack-o-lanterns. Taste apple and pumpkin-flavored items and invite children to graph their favorites.
There are also an amazing variety of fall crafts for kids to choose from. Explore nature and take your preschoolers out to find evidence of fall and create a fall nature collage (think acorns, pinecones, leaves, twigs, and sticks.) Often, crafts and art projects also double as great fine motor activities and give kids the chance to strengthen those hand muscles. The fall season is loaded with perfect activities for preschoolers!
Fall Alphabet Activities
Fall into some alphabet fun and lots of learning this autumn! There are some awesome fall alphabet activities for preschoolers out there, and I have collected some of my favorites for you. Check them out!
- 5 Fall Alphabet Activities that Teach Math, too!
- Fall Alphabet Activity with Beginning Sounds
- 20+ Free Printables for Preschool Fall Theme
- Fall Literacy Activities
- Fall Alphabet Cards and Read, Write, Build Mat
- Fall Alphabet Jewel Fine Motor Practice
Fall Tree Craft For Preschoolers
This fall alphabet tree activity is an easy autumn craft.
It develops letter recognition and capital and lowercase letter discrimination.
This fall tree craft also helps with fine motor skill development.
Materials
- Red, yellow, orange, and brown construction paper
- large white construction paper
- Scissors or a Paper Cutter
- Glue
- Markers
Instructions
- Draw out a large tree shape on white construction paper.
- Then use a marker to randomly write lowercase letters of the alphabet all around the tree branches and trunk.
- Cut red, yellow, orange, and brown construction paper into strips.
- Use a marker to write uppercase letters onto the strips. Leave enough space between the letters for your preschooler to tear them apart.
- Invite your child to tear apart the letters to make "leaves".
- Then, match the leaves to the lower-case letters on the tree.
- Glue the matching uppercase letters to the corresponding lowercase letters. (Or if you'd like your little one to repeat this activity, save the leaves in a sandwich baggie to match again another day).
Notes
This is also a great fine motor activity! Invite more opportunities for tearing and ripping paper by giving your students additional colored paper and practice tearing it into smaller pieces.
With assistance, students will learn where to best place their hands on the paper (the top edge) to make tearing the easiest, and where to place the rest of their fingers while tearing (tucked into the palm).
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Alphabet for Toddlers and Preschoolers
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
