32 Fall Activities For Elementary Students: Crafts, Arts, Games, And Songs

Fall is a wonderful time to explore the science behind the changing color of leaves, observe the wonders of the natural world, create nature-inspired art, and make cozy crafts.

This collection of creative lesson plans, hands-on experiments, inventive art projects, engaging craft activities as well as classic fall songs, dances, and recipes is a perfect way to celebrate the colorful season with your students.

1. Fall Art Activity 

This fall-inspired art activity repurposes beautiful leaves into a textured canvas for doodling and drawing. Kids can then arrange their creations into a mandala or any shape of their choice to create eye-catching wall decor.

Learn More: Artful Parent

2. Fall-Themed Activity 

This fun fall activity challenges young artists to craft their own necklaces using leaves and colorful beads of their choice. It’s a great way to get kids exploring the outdoors, observing the natural world, and reusing materials, all while developing fine motor skills and encouraging creative self-expression.

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3. Fun Apple Activity

This classic seasonal activity requires only a few apples, some paper, and a few different colors of paint, but produces glorious, multi-colored results. It can also work with corn, yams, or even small pumpkins. Students are sure to love making their own stamps that they can reuse again and again!

Learn More: Growing a Jeweled Rose

4. Apple-Themed Letter Recognition Worksheets

This simple literacy activity is a wonderful way to develop letter recognition and printing skills. This reusable printable can be edited to include the fall-themed vocabulary of your choice. Why not combine all the new words into a beautiful apple orchard display for the classroom?

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5. Fall Leaf Graphing Math Activity 

This fall graphing activity combines color identification and outdoor exploration. Students will have an opportunity to develop their ability to summarize and obtain and interpret new information while strengthening key numeracy and graphing skills.

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6. Fun Math Activity for Fractions 

This fall-themed, hands-on practice worksheet is a great way to help students visualize adding fractions. Using familiar visual manipulatives as visual anchors is a great way to reinforce their understanding of this otherwise abstract concept.

Learn More: You’ve Got This Math

7. Fall Creative Writing Template

This adorable pumpkin fold-out combines art and literacy as it can be assembled by students before they begin writing. Procedural writing helps kids practice the mechanics of writing while strengthening their graphic organizing abilities.

Learn More: The Creative Classroom

8. Fun Rhythm Activity

This fun rhythm-review activity makes a wonderful primary grade fall math printable. Students can be partnered up to create their own patterns using leaves, apples, pumpkins, acorns, or owls. It is also a great addition to any morning calendar routine, where the study of patterns can easily be incorporated.

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9. Fun Library Activity to Celebrate Beautiful Fall Trees 

This fall-themed story celebrates the interconnectedness of all of life and how the smallest acorns can turn into towering oak trees over their long life cycle. Creating their own adorable acorn characters creates a wonderful sensory-based and hands-on extension activity for young learners.

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10. Fun Bat Craft Activity

This engaging, hands-on bat activity makes a great complement to any fall-themed spooky story. It’s a wonderful way to strengthen fine motor skills while exploring new art techniques. Why not combine with the fall classic, Stellaluna, or a science unit on bats and echolocation to extend their learning?

Learn More: Fireflies and Mud Pies

11. Fun Activity for Puzzle Lovers 

This engaging word search activity challenges upper elementary students with more elaborate fall vocabulary. It is sure to keep them happily guessing for hours while developing their spelling, word recognition, and problem-solving skills.

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12. Fall Leaves Stem Activity

This creative science activity makes for a hands-on way to learn about solutions, water molecules, crystal formation, and chemical changes. Kids will be delighted to watch the magical crystals grow in real time before their very eyes!

Learn More: Little Bins for Little Hands

13. Fall-Themed Math Activity

This fall-themed activity combines multiplication skills with a color coding activity and makes a great addition to any independent math center. It’s also an excellent way to develop their ability to follow multi-step instructions.

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14. Apple Science Experiment

This easy science experiment teaches kids about the properties of acids and bases and their effect on apples. Kids are sure to have fun hypothesizing which apples will stay fresh the longest and conducting the experiment to see the results for themselves!

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15. Erupting Pumpkin Science Activity

Kids are sure to love watching these pumpkins erupt all while learning about how vinegar and baking soda combine to form carbon dioxide bubbles. Why not put a creative fall twist on their work by letting them pretend the pumpkins are spooky cauldrons?

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16. Paint Pumpkins

This colorful painting activity lets kids express their creative side while also making for a great opportunity to discuss the life cycle of a pumpkin. Why not visit a pumpkin patch and let them pick out their very own canvas or extend the learning by making art with pumpkin seeds?

Learn More: Art Bar Blog

17. Sing Some Fall-Themed Songs

These fall-themed songs make a great addition to any music lesson or can be used as a brain break throughout the day. Another option is to combine them with dance moves or gestures to enhance kinesthetic learning and lyrical recall.

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18. Romero Britto Inspired Pumpkins 

Romero Britto’s colorful pop art features the main subject surrounded by different shapes, lines, and striking details. Kids are sure to love putting their own creative twist on his unique style. While the results may be a bit surreal, they will certainly be attention-grabbing!

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19. Paint Fall Trees

Who thought bundled Q-tips and some paint could make for such lovely, vibrant paintings? This activity also works nicely with leaves, acorns, rocks, or any textured objects students are able to collect outside.

Learn More: The Pinterested Parent

20. Make 3D Apple Baskets

This neat 3D craft stands up on the page and kids are sure to enjoy moving the apples in and out of the basket. It’s a great addition to a food study unit or letter recognition activity.

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21. Learn About Leaf Chromatography

Kids are sure to love discovering the colors inside fall leaves while learning all about chromatography, or the process by which colors separate into distinct sections. Because this project takes a few days, it’s also a great opportunity to practice observing daily changes and recording data in a cumulative chart.

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22. Read and Color a Fall Mini Book

This collection of three mini books is a wonderful way to connect young readers with new vocabulary words while building their reading comprehension skills. Reading the books to a buddy or as a class are both great ways to strengthen their new learning.

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23. Make Yarn Pumpkins

These yarn pumpkins require nothing more than some balloons, a bit of yarn, glue, and a few pipe cleaners but produce a striking result that makes for a lovely table centerpiece or fall mantle. While fragile-looking, they are surprisingly durable if treated with care.

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24. Try a Fall-Inspired Recipe

This collection of fall-inspired recipes from fresh apple pie to pumpkin-flavored cookies is sure to delight even the most discerning palate! Cooking as a class is a wonderful team-building activity that makes for fond school memories while developing resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and time management skills.

Learn More: Kids Cooking Activities

25. Try a Fall Writing Prompt 

This collection of fall writing prompts can be combined with a book of your choice to help with brainstorming and generating creative inspiration or a science lesson on the five senses.

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26. Try A Fall Cross Word 

This fall-themed crossword is an excellent way to improve students’ vocabulary while increasing their knowledge of fall changes. While not overly challenging, it can be completed in groups to help develop group problem-solving skills.

Learn More: My Printable Puzzles

27. Make Fall Mosaics

Kids will surely enjoy using colorful beans to create these gorgeous mosaics of fall leaves, owls, pumpkins, and acorns while developing their fine motor skills and concentration ability. Why not add some yarn to create beautiful jewelry or window displays?

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28. Make a 3D Fall Tree

This 3D fall tree craft is simple to make but produces a lovely result, perfect for displaying on a bulletin board or saving as a fall keepsake. Students can roll up the construction paper into spirals or any shape of their choice to create a textured, eye-catching effect.

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29. Read a Non-Fiction Book

This non-fiction book of fascinating fall facts can be paired with a KWL (Know Wonder Learn) chart to encourage students to share their own fall connections and knowledge before summarizing their new learning from the book. They can also follow up their learning by summarizing what they’ve discovered on chart paper as a class.

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30. Make an Autumn Tree 

This colorful craft celebrates the changing colors of fall leaves. It’s also a great opportunity for kids to mix their own colors and learn about color theory. Why not combine it with a book about fall changes or a fall science experiment to develop cross-curricular connections?

Learn More: Arty Crafty Kids

31. Make a Paperbag Fall Luminary

These paper bag luminaries are a wonderful way to add cozy warmth to any home or classroom. While these ones require several steps and materials, they produce an enchanting and glowing result that is well worth the effort.

Learn More: The Pinterested Parent

32. Make a Fall Owl

These textured owls produce a beautiful 3D effect against a starlit moon backdrop. There are several steps involved, challenging young learners to carefully follow a series of directions to produce a beautiful multi-layered result.

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