With fall comes a change in colors, anticipation for the holidays, outdoor activities, and piles of falling leaves. Using leaves at home is a great way to foster the development of your child’s language skills. With an abundance of leaves of various shapes, sizes, and colors falling, there is endless potential for activities. Your child will enjoy learning about where different leaves come from, why they change colors, and why they fall on the ground. Below are specific language areas and examples of leaf related activities that you can try at home to support development. 

 1. Vocabulary: Playing outside in the leaves is a great way to work on building your child’s vocabulary knowledge. During play, talk about what you are doing and what you see. Repetition is key for children, and the more your child hears the words, the more likely they will be to learn them. Here are some ideas of words that you can use when playing in the leaves:  

• Nouns: Leaf, rake, bag, tree, stick, squirrel, bird, sun, cloud, pile 
• Verbs: Jump, throw, rake, crash, fall, play, rip, stomp, skip 
• Adjectives: Colors, big, little, colorful, crunchy, dry, soft, flat

 2. Pretend Play: Once you’ve picked some of your favorite leaves from outside, bring them home to work on supporting your child’s ability to engage in pretend play. Try using leaves as boats or cars for people, like blankets for baby dolls, or food for animals. You can even try cutting your leaves to resemble food and pretend to be at a restaurant. 

3. Following Directions: You can work on following directions when making any craft you choose with the leaves you’ve collected. A quick google search will lead you to many different options! Some favorites include gluing a leaf onto paper and drawing on the remaining body parts to make a turkey or drawing a lion’s face and using leaves to make its mane. You want to set up the craft so that there are clear steps that your child can complete. Make sure you are giving your child directions for the steps of the craft at a level that they can understand. For younger children, focus on delivering one instruction at a time. It might be helpful to pair this instruction with a picture of what they’re supposed to be doing or by you modeling the step yourself prior to instructing your child. For older children, you can work up to delivering multiple instructions at a time or giving them a written list of the instructions to work on independently. Here are some ideas of simple steps that you can focus on when doing a craft with your child. 

• Collect leaves 
• Cut/crumble the leaves 
• Collect glue
• Put glue on the paper 
• Put leaves on the glue 
• Color a picture on the paper

4. Prepositions: You can use leaves to teach or practice prepositions with your child. When teaching prepositions, model the word while also directing your child’s attention to the leaf’s location. Again, repetition is key! Here are some examples of ways to target prepositions when playing with leaves. 

• On/Off – Tape leaves on different surfaces that your child can take ‘off’ or put ‘on.’ 
• Up/Down – When playing outside in the leaves, throw them ‘up’ in the air and watch them fall ‘down.’ 
• Under – Hide objects ‘under’ the pile for your child to find. 
• Out/In – After making a leaf pile, jump ‘in’ and come ‘out’ of the pile.  
• When your child understands the meaning of different prepositions, you can work on having them practice using them. Hide leaves around the room, and then have your child tell you where the leaves are hiding. 

Autumn/Fall is such a wonderful time of the year. The weather is changing and it’s time to pull out the cozy sweater and warm socks. The trees are losing their leaves and the ground is covered in beautiful orange and red leaves. Two favorite fall activities that are loved by both the young and old are going to the apple orchard and the pumpkin patch. These activities were brief moments where individuals can learn about how the food was grown and harvested. This blog is about how our children at Blue Bird Day are expanding on their many developmental skills while they learn about harvesting and farming.

The word harvest means the process or period in which crops are gathered. In the U.S alone there are over 2 million farms. There are many different types of farming, from commercial (where the crops are grown and sold) to subsistence (grown for the farmer and their family). On these particular farms, food is grown. It varies from produce to poultry, each serving as a vital part of the meal placed on the table.

Autumn/Fall is the peak time for farmers to begin their harvesting. The time may vary from late July to October (September being the most common time period). During the process of harvesting, the farmer may use a tool, such as a scythe, to help remove the grain from the ground. Some larger farms may use animals or machinery to help gather in the crops. The farmers will sort through the goods to determine which is best to sell off or cook for their own family.  

At Blue Bird Day, each child is presented with the opportunity to learn about farming and harvest. They may have the chance to plant fruits and vegetables of their own in the nutrition group. There they will learn how the fruits and vegetables help our bodies to grow. They may read stories during developmental therapy which speaks to their ability to understand and retain the information and apply it to their lives. Or, the child could be presented with crop/farming like toys during social group which speaks to their ability to generalize the knowledge in a different setting but also expanding upon the ideas with friends and how to use their inclusion skill. Farming and harvesting is a skill that has been planted and is being cultivated daily. Blue Bird’s clients are like a beautiful crop and soon will be harvested to share with the rest of the world!