Autumn is a beautiful season, and creating Montessori-inspired autumn activities can help preschoolers enjoy and learn from the season. Squirrels and nuts can make a great autumn theme.
If you don’t celebrate Halloween in your family, you might want to create some squirrel and nut activity trays now. But squirrel and nut activities work well anytime in the autumn.
Here are some Montessori-inspired activities I found online:
Activities using oak leaves and/or oak trees from a Montessori-Inspired Autumn Leaf Unit would work well.
Acorn Transfer (Photo from Little Wonders’ Days)
Little Wonders’ Days has a number of activities with a squirrel theme, including transferring acorns with a strawberry huller.
Montessori Materials has free 3-part nut cards.
Montessori Mom has a squirrel newsletter with links to a number of activities and materials, including free squirrel anatomy nomenclature cards and squirrel food 3-part cards.
Fall Nature Tray (Photo from One Hook Wonder)
One Hook Wonder had a fall nature tray. (The blog is no longer available.)
Squirrel and Hazelnut Grid Game (Photo from Leptir)
Leptir has a number of nut activities, including cracking and grinding nuts. You’ll also find numbers and counters using hazelnuts. You can easily substitute acorns or any nut and use it for a squirrel and nut theme. Notice how the nuts are laid out in rows of two with an extra acorn centered below. That’s the traditional Montessori way of introducing cards and counters to give a hands-on understanding of odd and even. Leptir also has a squirrel grid game (photo above) using a Squirrel Grid Game printable from PreKinders.
PreKinders has nut sorting and nature walk checklist in addition to the squirrel grid game.
Acorn Math Game (Photo from To the Lesson!)
To the Lesson! has an acorn math game and stringing acorn buttons.
Addition Using Glass Acorns (Photo from Raising Genius Fish)
Note: The Raising Genius Fish blog is no longer available.
Outdoor Acorn Math Activities (my post)
Squirrel and Nut Activities on Pinterest
I have a Squirrel and Nut Activities board on Pinterest
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
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What a fantastic looking autumn nature tray! Thanks for composing the list of squirrel and nut activities. I used some of your pinterest boards for some inspiration for my next couple of weeks of Tot School.
Thanks, Lulu! I LOVE the nature trays and nature tables from One Hook Wonder … they’re fun to look at in photos and would be amazing for kids to experience in real life! I’m so glad my post and Pinterest boards have been helpful! 🙂
Thanks for sharing these ideas, Deb! I am getting ready to set up some more Autumn-themed activities in my classroom and this was just what I needed for some fun ideas.
Thanks, Sasha! I’m so glad you’re finding some ideas you can use. I always love to visit your blog for your creative ideas and to see fabulous examples of Montessori in action! 🙂
Nice round up of activities. Going to check out your Pininterest Board. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Discovering Montessori! I hope you find some activities you can use on my Pinterest board … of course, you have so many awesome activities already! 🙂
What a great theme idea! A perfect alternative to Halloween activities, too. That acorn transfer work is just gorgeous, and I love the nature tray. I could sit quietly with that for quite some time, and would likely end feeling relaxed 🙂
Thanks, Melissa! I love those activities, too. Great point about sitting quietly with the nature tray. When I was a Montessori teacher and homeschooler, I loved to just stop and look at the materials on the shelves sometimes. 🙂
Beautiful post Deb!! The pictures are lovely and definitely would inspire any child!
I am loving the nature tray from One Hook Wonder!
Thanks for hosting!
Kerri
Thanks, Kerri! I’m so glad you’re linked up. I always love your activities! I totally agree about the nature tray. Nicole from One Hook Wonder has awesome nature trays and nature tables … and there are examples for each season in her archives: http://onehookwonder.blogspot.com/search/label/Nature%20Tray.
Great activities as always…and Go Cards 🙂
Thanks so much, Lisa! I’ve been getting a kick out of the Rally Squirrel fever … I know a few Cardinals fans, so it’s been a fun World Series! 🙂
Thanks for the mention. I hope your post gets lots of love from St. Louisans like me! (or maybe it will bring us some luck in the game tonight). My oldest son is really into the squirrel thing. He even made a squirrel necklace at our gym kid drop off area tonight. I really can’t wait to do some of these other things with him since his interest is piqued.
My pleasure, Jackie, and thanks for your comment! I love the whole Rally Squirrel addition to the World Series! A squirrel necklace sounds cute. I’d love to see a blog post about it! 🙂
Great collection of squirrel activities. We play that squirrel grid game here often and have out transferring acorns too. However, I love the idea of strawberry hullers with them as I have normal tongs right now. Off to find our strawberry huller. Thanks. And I agree with another comment that squirrels are such a refreshing change from the normal Halloween stuff we see this time of year.
Thanks so much, Julie! Your fall Montessori work is awesome! I LOVE your creative ideas! 🙂
Your site is always so inspiring, Deb! Thanks for gathering this great collection….I’ve got to take the kiddos on a nature walk today to collect some acorns! 🙂
Thanks for your kind comment, Steph! I LOVE nature walks in the autumn … of course, we just had snow in Colorado Springs, so it’s looking a bit like winter here right now (was 70 degrees and perfect for a nature walk yesterday, though)! 🙂
This is a great round-up of squirrel and nut activities. I love Pinterest for collecting this. Thanks for joining Afterschool!
Thanks, Natalie! I’m definitely addicted to Pinterest! It’s so great for visual people like me – and it’s the easiest way I’ve found to create unit studies. 🙂
What a GREAT list of activities ! Thanks for linking up to Living Life Intentionally Linky Party =-)
Beth
Thanks, Beth! I love doing online research, and it’s great that it’s so easy to share my finds now with blogging and Pinterest. 🙂
My hunter/gather would love these ideas!
I stumbled this wonderful group of ideas!
Thanks, JDaniel4’s Mom! How great that you have a “hunter/gatherer” for activities like these! 🙂
Enjoy the tray ideas you have listed here! I stumbled as well! 🙂
Thanks, Laura! I appreciate it! Have a great weekend! 🙂
What a cute bunch of ideas! I am partial to Squireels! I featured them at my All Year Round Blog Carnival: Autumn post! http://likemamalikedaughter.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-all-year-round-blog-carnival-autumn.html