What You Can Do with Fall Leaves: 7 Fantastic Fall Crafts for the ESL Class
Fall is certainly a special time of year. There are as many activities you can do with your ESL as class as leaves on a tree.
So, to follow up on last year’s article, Fabulous Fall Activities for the ESL Class, we present even MORE activities you can do with your students for a fun-filled fall season!
MORE Fall Crafts:
-
1
Nocturnal Animal Masks
Fall nights are filled with the sounds of nocturnal animals. So, help your students get into a nocturnal mood with some owl and raccoon masks! You’ll need paper plates, construction paper, glue, scissors, and string. You’ll find the instructions in this Autumn Activities worksheet, as well as the template you can photocopy and hand out to your students. When they’re done, students put on their masks and reproduce the sounds these animals make.
-
2
Fall Garlands
Making Christmas garlands is fun, and they’re certainly colorful, but how about something that celebrates the fall season? For these very organic garlands, your class will need acorns, small sticks or twigs, and pine cones. You also need to bring twine, rope or a hemp cord, plus a glue gun. Make different garlands, perhaps one made entirely of pinecones, or another with all three elements. Tie the pinecones to the cord, and glue the acorns and sticks – try out different shapes with the sticks, for example a series of crosses. Decorate your classroom for a very seasonal look!
-
3
Autumn Leaves
Everything changes in the fall, including our free time activities. In this combination craft/writing task, students will share what they like to do in the fall through a small poster. Give each of your students a piece of construction paper and several pieces of paper shaped like leaves of different colors. Students choose how they will map out the information. For example, they may take a big red leaf and write, “Things I Do in the Fall” and add smaller leaves surrounding this one with the activities they enjoy. Another one may write, “Things I collect in the Fall”, and add smaller leaves with words like acorns, leaves, twigs, pine cones, etc… In the end, each student will have their own poster to share with the class!
-
4
Play Dough Fall Food
Who doesn’t like playing with play dough? Bring play dough of different colors (you can make your own with food coloring). Show students how to make different fall foods like corn, pumpkin, apple, etc…Want to see a great way to make a play dough blueberry pie? Check out Play-Doh’s Fresh Ideas gallery for step-by-step instructions.
MORE Fall Games:
-
5
Red Leaves Are Falling Down
This is a fun musical game you can play with your youngest ESL learners. Download a copy of this fall worksheet and photocopy the last five pages: My Autumn Leaves Book. Each of the pages features a particular color, so instruct your students to color the leaves on each page in the color indicated. Then, get ready to sing a song. Sing the words in the booklet to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down. Hold hands with a student and raise them up high to form a “bridge”. The remaining students form a line and pass under the bridge as you sing the song. When the song ends, you both lower your arms and catch one of the students, who’ll have to replace the other as part of the bridge.
-
6
Going Nuts!
Students will take turns tossing assorted nuts for points. Cut out long rectangles of construction paper or poster board of different lengths: 10 inches, 20 inches, 30 inches, and so on, depending on how many circles you want. Take each one and loop to form a circle. Form concentric circles over a large cardboard marked with different number values. Students who toss a nut into the center get 50 points for their team. Then, the next circle is 30 points and so on.
-
7
Vegetable Soup
Put your students’ memory and cooking skills to the test! Bring a large pot to class and tell your class they will help you make vegetable soup. Have an assortment of plastic veggies ready for them to choose from. A student takes one vegetable, names it, and places it in the pot, saying, “We’re adding corn.” The next student must add another vegetable but also remember the previous, “We’re adding corn and pumpkin.” Students continue adding vegetables until one of them makes a mistake.
Want more fantastic fall activities? How about some more fall crafts?
You’ll find lots in our recent article, What You Can Do with Fall Leaves: 7 Fantastic Fall Crafts for the ESL Class. And for even MORE fall fun, check out our September section. Here, you’ll see over two dozen autumn worksheets ready to download and print. Fall just couldn’t be more fun!
