3 Creative Autumn Classroom Activities

There is plenty of creative inspiration outside at this time of year, from the leaves changing colour to a blanket of frost appearing on the grass in the mornings. Why not bring the magic inside the classroom by encouraging your students to observe the changes that nature is going through and create their own work of art to celebrate the season?

Here are 3 autumnal activities to encourage creativity:

1) Autumn Leaves

Autumn is one of the most colourful times of the year, and what better way to make the most of the spectrum of colours than by creating beautiful art? With reds, oranges, yellows and browns scattered across the ground, students will love collecting their own fallen leaves and bringing them back to life in art.

You will need: fallen leaves, paper, paints, pens, crayons, glue and pencils.

1) Ask your students to lay their leaves down with the veins facing up. Paint this side of the leaf and press it onto a piece of paper to get an imprint. They could also lay the leaf down and paint over the edge of it to create an outline. 

2) Or, why not try placing the sheet of paper on top of the leaf and rub over it with a crayon to create an outline of a leaf?

3) Encourage students to get creative and mix and match the above ideas, along with coming up with their own ideas to create a colourful autumn collage!

You can find this activity idea and more on Teacher Vision. 

2) Write an Autumnal Poem

There are plenty of changes happening outside of our windows during the Autumnal months, so ask your pupils to pick up a pen and describe what they can see, hear and feel in nature at this time of year.

1) Observation: Ask your students to observe the world outside of the classroom and write a poem about the changes that they can see. Did they notice the grass was a little crunchy this morning? Have more leaves fallen to the ground overnight? You could even take your class out to the playground and get them to write about the things they can see and hear around them.

2) Favourite things: Create a bubble map on the board and ask your class to contribute the things that they love most about Autumn. Is it getting to wear a big cosy coat? Drinking hot chocolate? The approach of Christmas? Ask them to write a poem about their favourite things in Autumn using the keywords on the board as inspiration. If they don’t like Autumn at all, then why not write a poem about all the things they don’t like?

3) Autumn Window Decorations 

This is an easy art activity that you can do at any time of the year but is particularly magical during autumn. 

You will need: Sticky back plastic and coloured tissue paper. 

1) Cut the sticky back plastic into squares, peel the plastic apart and give one square to each child. 

2) Get your class to use colourful tissue paper to create autumnal images by sticking tissue paper onto the plastic. This could be anything of their choosing, from pumpkins to pretty autumn leaves and maybe even a few Christmas decorations if you’re feeling festive already! 

3) Once everyone has completed their designs, simply place a second piece of sticky back plastic over the top. Your students can cut out their designs using scissors to get rid of the excess plastic. 

4) Hang the designs on your classroom window and when the light shines through you will have beautiful autumnal decorations to brighten up your classroom!

Find this and other autumn activity ideas on The Teacher’s Corner.

Looking for other activity ideas and resources to use in the classroom this year? Take a look at our 3 lesson ideas for teaching the periodic table, including a free printable periodic table resource.