Fall will officially be here next week, but for all
intensive purposes the season is already underway. As temperatures start to
drop and leaves begin to change, students will grow more and more excited about
the new season. This presents you with a great opportunity. Take the new season
that students are excited about and use it to teach. This can include
everything from lessons plans to fun activities. Below we’ve listed ten great
ideas for using fall to your advantage as an educator.
1.
Track the leaves as they change color. There are
multiple ways you can implement this in your classroom. You could make this an
individual activity, and have students record the color of the leaves they see
at school or at home. You can also make it a classroom activity, and take
students out every day to observe a tree outside of the school, then record the
color in your class. While you do this, you can focus on topics such as what
makes leaves change color, different types of trees, and more.
2.
Do some fall crafts with your students. There’s
tons of fall crafts out there for you to make with students. Do a simple Google
search, or invest in a craft book for some fun, creative ideas. You can create
these crafts in one of two ways. First, you could make a craft based off the
theme of fall. This means make some sort of fall craft using traditional arts
and crafts materials, such as paint, construction paper, etc. Another way you
can handle that is to use actual fall items, such as leaves, pumpkin seeds,
etc, to make the craft. Students will have a blast.
3.
Another great way to celebrate fall with your
students is to take them on a field trip. Field trips have great educational
value, and are very exciting for students. One very fun and educational trip
you can do is to go to a pumpkin patch, or go apple picking. Students can pick
a pumpkin to take home or pick a batch of apples. It gives them a chance to see
where these items come from. Plus, these areas often have other activities such
as apple cider, corn mazes, and more! If you’re looking for a different idea,
maybe try a local farm. This will show students in greater detail where their
food comes from and meet the people who produce this food on a daily basis.
4.
Since the weather will be changing, fall is a
great time to start tracking weather changes. Every day you can have students
come in to a set up “weather station” to record different aspects of the
weather. This will give them a hands on experience with weather while giving
you an opportunity to teach them about different types of weather, and why different
types of weather happen. Focus on something easier, such as temperature and
rain VS sunshine for younger students, while for older you can focus on items
such as humidity, wind speed, rainfall amount, and more. Some of this can be
manually done, and some may require you to check official sources.
5.
A great lesson you can do could be on autumn
fruits and vegetables. You can explain what it means for an item to be in
season, and give a lesson on the specifics of each piece of produce. Some
common produce it could be good to focus on includes apples, broccoli, carrots,
celery, cranberries, mushrooms, onions, pears, potatoes, and pumpkins. You can
use activities to drive the point home as well. Have a food festival, where
each student brings in samples of foods using fall produce. You can also make a
cookbook, with each student bringing in a fall recipe!
6.
Since pumpkins are so common for fall, why not
have a lesson about the pumpkin life cycle? While students are likely to know
what a pumpkin is and how to decorate it, they aren’t as likely to know other
things about a pumpkin, such as how it grows, what it weighs, how big it can
get, and how to cook with it besides a pumpkin pie.
7.
A good nature walk isn’t just for spring! There’s
tons of different things to discover during a nature walk in the fall. Good
items to have students hunt for include different types of leaves, nuts,
animals such as squirrels, birds, etc, pinecones, mushrooms, and much more!
8.
You can have themed writing activities for any
occasion, including fall. You can approach this in multiple ways. First, you can
have students write about fall specifically, such as what they like to do
during fall, popular fall activities, and more. Another option is to have fall
be the central point of a creative writing activity. Students can create a
fictional story based around the season and season activities. This will get
them to stop and think a bit more critically about the season!
9.
One easy way to celebrate fall is of course, to
decorate your classroom! You can do this by hanging student crafts, making fall
bulletin boards, hanging other fall decorations, and more.
10.
The last example we have for you is to plan themed
subject lessons around fall. For language arts, have writing and reading
activities focused on fall. For science, do experiments using items such as
leaves and apples. For math, make problems using fall items, such as counting pumpkin
seeds. For history, focus on fall in different cultures and in different time
periods. There’s tons you can do with this tip!
Those are our tips for using fall in your lesson plans. We
hope you use a couple of them with your students!
