Learning with Mase

Fall Leaf Color Sort

Honestly? I wasn’t ready to dive into all things fall just yet, but we’d better get on it in case we skip fall altogether this year and transition straight into winter ( which it will never happen). So today, while Mase and I went to hobby lobby, we kept our eyes peeled for beautiful fall leaves. Once we got home I had the genius idea to play and create some fun games for him, and put them to work in all kinds of really fun, really simple activities, one of which was this fall leaf color sort.

Here’s what we found… There wasn’t ton of colorful leaf, but we still managed to find several leaves in browns, reds, oranges, yellows, and greens which was good enough for us!

Now just for fun, we decided to do this little activity in our beloved Ikea sensory table… I also picked up some of the smallest trofast bins with sorting activities just like this in mind (previously we just had the 2 larger bins) and they worked perfectly. I folded pieces of brown, red, orange, and yellow card stock in half, pressed them down into the base of the bins, and our fall leaf colour sorting game was ready to go!

That being said, you certainly don’t need a fancy sensory play table for this activity… You can just easily tape 4 pieces of card stock or construction paper to the table or floor or use a set of 4 bowls or containers. Work with what you have on hand!

Next up, I set the leaves around the edges of the table and invited Mase to come and take a look.

Given that he’s 4 {soon turning 5} and we’ve done plenty of sorting activities, this leaf color sort was a total breeze for him even though I wondered if a few of the leaves might be a little tricky….

They weren’t (hah!) He basically moved at this speed until every last leaf was in the bin of the corresponding color. Sorting is such an important skill and building block for other future skills that I absolutely would not consider something like this – something that’s really “easy” for him – a waste of time. Reinforcement is super important for kiddos and “easy” activities are excellent for building confidence, so go on and do those too easy activities anyways!