School is in, and so is the harvest! These activities for a fall harvest theme preschool lesson plan will add hands-on fun to your early learning curriculum.
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Explore how food is grown and prepared with this fall harvest theme preschool lesson plan. From seeds to harvest, there’s lots to appreciate about how food gets to the dinner table.
A fun harvest song will help get your harvest theme started! These catchy lyrics to the tune of the “I Hear Thunder” jingle work perfectly for the arrival of the fall harvest.
“I see pumpkins. I see pumpkins. Oh don’t you? Oh don’t you?
Growing in the garden, growing in the garden. Let’s pick two. Let’s pick two.”
Whether you see pumpkins, apples, or tomatoes, harvest activities provide lots of opportunity for hands-on exploration.
- Sort colors and sizes of fruit and veggies; feel bristly leaves and stalks; look for seeds inside pumpkins and tomatoes.
- Talk about the importance of the harvest with the help of Harvest Preschool Activities: A Social Studies Lesson from The Educators Spin On It.
Be sure to grab our made-for-you planner with a week of fun activities ready to go. The planner is created with our easy ABC method of program planning.
Preschool Harvest Theme ABC Planner
Harvest preschool activities
Plan your curriculum to include activities that extend throughout the school year: gardening with kids starts with planting in spring; caring for plants during the summer; harvesting ripe produce in late summer or early fall.
The harvest activities in this lesson plan are organized into the following categories.
1. Field Trip
2. Plant
3. Harvest
4. Math
5. Sensory
6. Themed unit
1. Field Trip
A visit to a local farm or farmer’s market is a great way to introduce a fall harvest adventure. You and your early learners can see first hand how crops are grown and harvested. This can spark the discussion of where food on our plates originates.
Related: How to Plan a Successful Field Trip
2. Plant
Container gardens are easy for kids to plant and care for. Many vegetables such as green beans and tomatoes grow well in deck planters.
3. Harvest
Look for beans that are approximately 3 inches (7.6cm) in length and firm. Show kids how to gently push the leaves back to search for the beans, then pull the beans from the stem.
Kids can observe the changing color as tomatoes ripen on the vine. Cherry tomatoes are a nice size for kids to grasp during the harvest.
Children’s names can be etched into a pumpkin or zucchini early in the season. The letters grow with the gourd!
4. Math activities
Observe sizes and shapes of a variety of fruits and vegetables. Include store-bought produce if you do not have options grown at home or in the classroom.
- Measure celery and green beans with a tape measure or ruler to compare lengths.
- Weigh apples and potatoes on a scale.
- Hold an apple in one hand and a potato in the other hand to compare size and weight.
- Explore fractions with a Watermelon math activity.
5. Sensory activities
1. Wrap a few green tomatoes in newspaper or brown paper. Place them in a convenient location where kids can easily unwrap and check them daily. Observe them until they ripen to a bright red, then wash and enjoy at snack time, on their own or in a salad.
2. Wash fresh fruits and vegetables and place on cotton towels to dry.
3. Engage all your senses as you shake, smell, wash, peel, slice and taste an apple.
4. Compare an apple and a potato. Which feels heavier; looks bigger; feels smoother; has the most noticeable smell?
5. Create sensory bins.
- Bring the harvest inside with a Harvest Sensory Bin from Little Bins for Little Hands.
- Count and sort foam pumpkins in the sensory bin .
6. Fall Harvest Thematic Unit
This unit is created using our ABC Method = Activity + Book + Craft.
Here is a printable sample week of activities to help fill your daily planner.
Preschool-Harvest-Theme-ABC-Planner
Instructions and links are included in the details below.
Activity
1. Field trip
Pick fruit and vegetables grown at a local farm, in a container garden at home or in the classroom, or on display at a farmer’s market.
2. Music and Movement
Song 1. (tune: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)
This is the way we dig the soil (make digging motions as if with a garden hoe).
This is the way we plant the seeds (walk up and down the “rows” sprinkling seeds).
This is the way the rain will fall (wiggle fingers like raindrops falling from the sky).
This is the way the sun will shine (raise arms, join hands to make a big circle overhead).
This is the way the garden grows (crouch low, slowly rise up until standing on tiptoe with arms reaching up to the sky).
Song 2. (Tune: The Farmer in the Dell)
The farmer plants the seeds….. (role play walking down the garden rows sprinkling seeds)
The sun begins to shine….. (raise arms overhead and touch fingertips to make a round sun)
The rain begins to fall….. (wiggle fingers overhead then slowly lower to the ground)
The plants begin to grow….. (crouch low, then slowly rise to standing on tiptoe with arms stretching overhead)
3. Small Group
- Chop foods to prepare homemade soup or a veggie platter for snack or lunch. Can you spot the carrots and celery in the soup?
- Provide simple science as you explore seeds in foods.
- Introduce word cards and word puzzles with these ideas in the Harvest Theme for Preschool and Kindergarten at The Preschool Toolbox Blog.
4. Circle
- Takeaway Game : Place several vegetables on a tray; remove one item ; guess which item is missing?
- Blindfold Game: Guess which fruit or vegetable you are holding. Use your sense of smell and sense of touch for clues.
B = Book
The Berenstain Bears Harvest Festival
(affiliate links)
C = Craft
Cut off the tops of red and green peppers for veggie stamps painting.
Provide fine motor practice lacing an apple cutout.
Roll a pompom seed through a pumpkin patch maze.
Use lots of orange paint for a burlap pumpkin painting.
Carve a pumpkin for a lighted pumpkin activity.
Harvest preschool theme tips
Plan a variety of activities including puzzles, games, crafts, art, and books that extend the harvest theme.
Fill your centers with harvest themed materials – artificial pumpkins and digging tools in the sandbox; plastic veggies and strainers in the water table; books about the harvest in the book corner; fall coloring sheets in the art area; farmyard vehicles and fences in the block corner.
Enjoy music and movement at circle time and in small group activities.
There’s so much to sing about when it comes to harvest time. Celebrate the crops and the bounty of the land with fun activities kids will love.
Follow our Seasonal:Fall Pinterest board