Fall is one of the most refreshing seasons of the year for homeschooling. After dealing with the high heat of the summer, fall's cool temperatures bring great relief. Fall also gears us up for the holiday season. Autumn is a fun time to explore outdoor learning along with cozy tea times around the fireplace while reading aloud from your family's fall favorites.

This post will give you some great tips for creating an exciting and engaging fall unit study with lots of outdoor time to inspire fall learning.

Come on outdoors and explore the wonder and beauty of fall leaves with this FREE Fall Leaves Unit Study!

Why Do an Outdoorsy Fall Unit Study?

Many children and adults are addicted to screentime unlike any other time in history. Most Americans spend far more time in front of screens then they do outdoors. More then ever in human history have we seen more illnesses related to lack of exercise, poor diet, and an epidemic of mental illnesses tied to nature deficit disorder.

Here I will offer you a blueprint for distracting the family from screen addictions by enticing the your family to connect more with the good old fashion story read aloud while getting outdoors to experience nature in the fall.

Start with a Simple Fall Neighborhood Walk

Get into the fall spirit by taking a walk around your own neighborhood. Enjoy looking at the fall colors and seasonal neighborhood yard decor. This is a great way to find ideas and inspiration for creating your own yard art and crafts.

Go on a Family Fall Bike Ride

Fall is a fabulous time for bike rides. Every age can appreciate the speedier mode of bike transportation. There's just something healthy and invigorating about biking around. Take a gander down to a local pond, creek or river to observe the fall colors. Take some photos and videos to look back on.

Hike the Local Forests

Hiking is a great way to get out on foot and explore the local forests around your area. Exploring nature in fall a bit further away from the house and neighborhood can inspire a since of adventure in children. There's just something about being outdoors in the crisp fresh air and sunshine that sparks an appetite in children unlike anything else.

Bring loads of healthy but tasty snacks. My healthy suggestions include apples and carrots with peanut butter. Get whole grain crackers, like Mary's Gone Crackers with pre-sliced cheese.

Autumn Activities at Home

Cuddle up Outdoors for a Fall Story Read Aloud

Here's a great idea to include for fun fall activities for families. Go to your local library and checkout a bunch of colorful and fun fall storybooks to read aloud with the family. Find an old coach and set it up outside in the backyard for a comfy place to cuddle up together with blankets and hot beverages for fall outdoor story read aloud time.

Can't get an outdoor coach? Sit on yoga mats, or carpet squares on the ground. Prepare some cozy warm beverages such as herbal tea or dark hot chocolate sweetened with monk fruit. Read the story aloud with gusto. Be sure to use different voices per character along with the rise and fall of your voice for emphasis and more listening interest.

Fall Story Project & Activity Inspiration

When children are interested and engaged in a story, they'll often come up with very creative ideas to express the story through creative writing, games, arts and crafts and other projects exhibiting their learning.

Ask the children any or all of the following questions about the story after it's read to inspire original activity ideas:

1. What interested you most about the story?
2. Can you think of any projects or activities that we can do that remind you of the story?
3. What games can you make up from the story?
4. Look at the pictures in the books. Invite the children to mimic the art style and create their own original drawings.
5. What math is found like hidden treasure in the story?

Download NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study

I've created a free Fall Leaves Unit Study perfect for multi-age learners. Download it below if you haven't done so already.

How to Use NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study

1. Read through the lesson plan starting with the Quick Start Guide.
2. Gather the art supplies suggested for the Fractal Leaves Art Gallery project, plus, any additional materials that you want to use for creating your own creative project ideas not in the plan.
3. Bookmark the digital versions of any of the books to read aloud, or, go to the library to get any or all of the books, if available.
4. Begin the unit study with the stories.

The Fall Leaves Quick Start Guide

NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Quick Start Guide is the best place to start the unit study. I streamlined it so that it's a quick read getting you jumpstarted with the study so that you're not muddling your way through it.

Fall Leaves Literature Connection

I suggest two stories to read aloud in the Fall Leaves Unit Study. Of course, I encourage you to find and read aloud many more fall storybooks then are mentioned in my unit study plan.

The first fun storybook I suggest reading aloud to the children, either indoors or outdoors, is The Magic School Bus: The Wild Leaf Ride by Judith Stamper. True to the Magic School Bus series, this story will engage the kiddos, keep them laughing, and inspire them to come up with their own creative activity interpretation of their story learning. It's a fun, colorful, playful story sure to entertain multiple ages. My hope is that the book will inspire your children to get outside in your backyard and begin looking at the beautiful fall leaves!

The next book I suggest reading aloud, is the Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. This whimsically charming little book holds a lot of happy memories for me. Back when I ran an in-person art and science nature program for homeschoolers, I read aloud this story to my learners. There we were sitting on comfy cushions on the second floor of an old red painted and restored 1800's grain mill. The fall sun shone through the windows of the learning center as the children listened to me with a hush while I read aloud Leaf Man, a vibrant and fun story.

Fall Science Activities

NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study includes an exciting science connection through an entertaining yet educational video showing why leaves change colors. The video is short with a School House Rock style animation. The animator has a nice rich confident voice as he explains the miracle of the science of leaf color change.

Fall science activities:

The following ideas can enhance your Fall Leaves Unit Study science activities.

1. Stop the video at various points to draw the animations as illustrations in a journal or notebook.
2. Go outside and collect leaves of various stages of decay. Invite children to explain why the leaves change color and finally decay.
3. Draw various leaves in stages of decay.
4. Draw various colored leaves.

Fall Leaves Math Connection

NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study does not skimp on the math learning to be had. Learners complete the Fractal Fall Leaves Art Gallery Project. This project will get the learners back outdoors collecting fall leaves while learning how the veined patterns found in the leaves are a very common math pattern called fractals.

What are Fractals?

Fractals are self-similar, or veined patterns found repeatedly throughout nature. Heck, human bodies are made up of a huge network of living fractals found in all of our tubular bodily systems including circulatory, respiratory and excretory systems. Pretty neat, huh?

Fall leaves exhibit fractals in the veined pattern which mirrors the branching found in the trees they fall from. In NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study, I provide a unique art gallery project that gets children outdoors searching for leaves with 6 different fractal patterns. The children do leaf rubbings on templates, color them, label the cards with the tree species and the fractal pattern type. Finally, the children can display their fractal leaves as an art gallery on a wall.

Autumn Leaves Art Activity

The gorgeous colors and symmetrical shapes of fall leaves have inspired artists and crafters for ages. NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study offers two leaf art projects. One project is guided by a YouTube video and the other is an informative read aloud called Look What I Did with a Leaf by Morteza Sohi. This charming book is told in an informative way with various artistic leaf animal creations for children to create using real fall leaves found in your backyard or local area.

Children of all ages can appreciate the book being read aloud as they learn how to put the leaf art together. They'll enjoy the activity of collecting the leaves to create any or all of the leaf animal art found in the book. Alternatively, children can draw the animal creations from the book.

Don't have easy access to fall leaves in your area? Got an iPad? Alaina Jensen, a fantastic digital artist, has created these gorgeous Procreate leaf art digital brushes using real life leaves, acorns, and twigs from around her local neighborhood in England! Children of all ages can play around with these on an iPad and enjoy creating unique fall leaf art on the app.

Fall Leaves Geography

The last subject covered in NatureGlo's Fall Leaves Unit Study is geography. You can do any of the subjects in any order. Geography is covered by looking at online maps to explore the fall colors globally and in each state in the US. Children will get a kick out of exploring the various state's leaf color changes and when they occur as they occur. Children can pick their favorite states. This can open up the next rabbit hole of exploring favorite states in fall.

Conclusion

On and on the Fall Leaves Unit Study learning can where you'll end it, no one knows until the kids know they're done. A good time to end the study is when the children are ready to move on to the next fall rabbit hole or a new subject altogether!

Do they want to continue exploring fall? Look at more fall related books in the Archive.org database. Find more fun fall themed stories to read aloud. Get activity ideas from the stories while following the children's creative lead.

Want more fun fall learning ideas?

Check out this post, How to Do Freestyle Fall Homeschool Notebooking.

Talk Soon,

NatureGlo