We are now in our second month of the Playful Preschool Series. The past few weeks we have been exploring apples, family, farms and harvest. This week’s Playful Preschool theme is leaves! We came up with a fun preschool song to inspire lots of literacy learning.
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The Leaves of the Trees Song
Why We Chose This Activity
The leaves are just beginning to change colors in the Midwest. We’ve been reading about leaves, talking about leaves and collecting leaves.
My kids also love to sing. Their all-time favorite song is The Wheels on the Bus. So, we decided to change the words to fit our leaf theme and came up with a cute song that is also packed with literacy learning opportunities.
We took the words to the song and wrote them on a large piece of paper to do lots of letter and word exploration!
Preparing for Playful Learning
Materials needed: lyrics to the song, large paper, markers, pointer, wikki-stix (optional)
Write the words for the song on the large paper. Add picture clues above the following words: leaves, trees, and pile. You can also write the color words (red, yellow and orange) in the corresponding color.
Here are the song lyrics. You can also download the free printable of The Leaves of the Trees.
The Leaves of the Trees
The leaves on the trees turn red, yellow and orange.
red, yellow and orange
red, yellow and orange
The leaves on the trees turn red, yellow and orange
in my town.
Additional Verses
The gusty winds blow through the trees.
The leaves on the trees fall to the ground.
We make a pile by raking the leaves.
Now it is time to jump in the pile.
How to Use the Song
First, just enjoy singing the song over and over and over again!
You can listen to me sing it below!
When your child is comfortable with the song you are ready to do some exploring of the print. Here are several ideas for using preschool songs to teach about letters and words.
- If your child is working on letter identification, use the wikki-stix to find a designated letter on the chart.
- Practice distinguishing between a letter and a word. Count the number of words on each line. It’s helpful to clap the words as you count them.
- Use a pointer to track the print as you sing. If your child is ready, they can track the print instead of you.
- If your child is learning words, pick a few to focus on and find. I would suggest the. It’s a high-frequency word and is used several times in the song.
- Let your child practice writing a letter or word that they see. I left extra room at the bottom of the chart for this work.
The Playful Preschool team has many more ideas for learning about leaves. Check them out below and join us again next week when we explore nighttime.
Fall Colors Modeled Writing in Preschool by Fun-A-Day
Fall Colors Water Mixing by Still Playing School
Exploring Fall Colors With Gourds by Little Bins For Little Hands
Why Leaves Change Colors by The Preschool Toolbox Blog
Learning With Preschool Songs: The Leaves of the Trees by Growing Book by Book
DIY Fall Color Word Book by The Educators’ Spin On It
Learning Number Words with Fall Colored Leaves by Tiny Tots Adventures
Fall Tree Number Matching by Mom Inspired Life
Colors of Fall Sensory Bin by Life Over C’s
Foot Painting The Fall Colours by Learning to Walk
Exploring Fall Colors in Paint by Powerful Mothering
Autumn Colours Plant Science at Rainy Day Mum
Make Your Own Fall Potpourri at Capri + 3
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Mihaela says
Great song! I think my toddler would love to sing Leaves song with Wheels on the bus tune! 🙂 Love how you combined song and learning. Great resource for any parent or preschool teacher! Thank you for adding this post to Tots at Play: L is for Leaves linky. You’re welcome to add any of your newly published posts or those from archives to any of our existing (or future) Tots at Play linkies. Now I’m off to schedule this and to promote it a bit around the net. 🙂 Thank you again!
Amanda @artsy_momma says
I love the little picture drawings! I’m going to see if my son is interested in it because he is constantly making books.
Jill says
What a super fun song Jodie! I love how animated you are in your video when you sing the song. Your extension activity is brilliant. Pinning 🙂
Jodie Rodriguez says
Thanks Jill!
Alecia says
So your song is now etched in my brain! 🙂 I love how you made the transition from creating and singing your song to exploring print.
Mary Catherine says
Love this song, thank you! The ways you’ve extended it with the chart is right up my alley! 🙂
Jodie Rodriguez says
I’m so glad it will be useful to you Mary Catherine!
Kim says
What a fun song thanks for sharing!
The Preschool Toolbox says
Love this song for fall! It a great way to encourage rhythm and literacy! Love the Wikki Stix for letter identification, too.:)
Nicolette Roux says
Brilliant!
Pinkoddy says
This is fantastic – I shall show my son this.
Natasha says
Oh I love this! Letter recognition,writing skills and a song.
Jodie Rodriguez says
Thank you Natasha! I love activities that include lot of literacy practice.
Cerys from Rainy Day Mum says
I love the song – I now have it stuck in my head great idea with the board and working at the different stages of the child.
Jodie Rodriguez says
LOL, thanks!
Amanda says
We used to do lots of songs on big charts in my kindergarten classroom, but I haven’t done them much with my preschooler – thanks for the reminder. This is an awesome activity for literacy and music!
Theresa (Capri + 3) says
What a great song to teach about Fall colors. I love that you added a pre-reading activity using the lyrics.
Danielle says
This is so much fun! I love the song and the print work is a fantastic extension.
Jodie Rodriguez says
Thank you Danielle!
Sarah says
Awesome! Awesome! I can’t wait to try! This is a wonderful idea for my son to work on letters and words and following along. He loves music!