I may earn money from companies mentioned in this post at no cost to you. Thank you!
This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Fall is the perfect time to get your preschool students outside. It’s not so hot that they’ll complain about sweating after 5 minutes, and not so cold that you lose half your instruction time getting them in and out of their winter clothes. You’ll help them understand why the season is called ‘fall’ with all the nuts, leaves and acorns that hit the ground, and these items make for some great counting and scientific observation lessons. You can also bring them into your classroom with this fall themed tracing activity and your students will love helping the cute squirrels cross the page to find their acorn for winter.
Why Practice Pre-Writing Skills
While there is something undeniably adorable about early preschool writing where they wobble their pencil across tracing lines of letters, better teaching practice is to make sure they have fine motor control over their pencil before they start making meaningful marks. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use trace lines for preschoolers; in fact this is the best way to give them guidance on how to move their pencil with precision. What it does mean is that you need to provide them with plenty of repeated practice to master this skill before you introduce letter formation.
These acorn tracing lines activities are a great pre-writing activity for preschool as they help students practice different connected movements that will be essential to have when they start writing letters and numbers.
Preparing Acorn Tracing Lines
For this activity you will need:
Paper
Printer
Writing tools
Optional: laminator, tweezers and pom poms or mini erasers to place along the lines instead of writing them out
If you don’t have the materials needed, don’t sweat! You can get it delivered to your doorstep really quickly with Amazon Prime. You can get a 30-day free trial here.
How To Use Acorn Tracing Lines
This fall themed tracing activity helps your students practice pre-writing skills by having them draw a continuous line from the squirrel to the acorn. There are 4 challenges on each page, so make sure you have plenty of copies so that students can practice the activity over and over again. To help scaffold success for this activities, try some of these tips:
-
Demonstrate progress – there’s nothing better than helping your students to see their own personal growth. You can do this with these trace lines for preschoolers by saving each sheet as they complete it and creating a short portfolio that will showcase their improvements in their accuracy over time. It also serves as a good reminder to us as educators not to expect perfection the first time around.
-
Choose different sized pens – for those students struggling with the fall themed tracing activity with a pencil, you can (and should!) increase the size of their writing tool to help give them more control as they develop the fine motor skills and muscles necessary for writing. This could be a thick pencil grip or a marker pen. As they gain accuracy, start to transition them towards smaller writing tools.
-
Remove the tracing lines – for those students who quickly master the acorn tracing lines, challenge them by giving them a picture of a squirrel and an acorn on opposite sides of a blank page and ask them to connect them with one of the shapes from the trace lines. Their goal is to mimic the shapes independently which will help to build their muscle memory for letter and number creation.
More Themed Centers Perfect for Fall:
My Fall Leaves and Acorns Themed Centers is a variety pack of 10 games focused on early literacy, math and fine motor skills.
These are the games included:
1) Acorn Beginning Sound Clip Cards – choose the correct first letter of the object shown
2) Acorn Alphabet Match – match the top (lowercase letter) and bottom (uppercase letter) of the acorns correctly
3) Acorn Pre Primer Sight Words Cards – includes 24 of the first 40 pre primer sight words. Choose from matching uppercase only, lowercase only or uppercase to lowercase.
4) Acorn Shape Tracing Mats – Draw out the different shapes or fill in the shape with playdough or some other small manipulative.
5) Fall Leaves Count and Match to 10 – match the numbers of leaves on the tree to the card
6) Fall Leaves Patterns – 3 different levels included ABAB, AABAAB, ABCABC
7) Fall Leaves Alphabet Sort – child will sort letter cards into upper or lowercase
8) Acorn Shape Matching Clip Cards – choose the correct shape that is shown on the acorn
9) Fall Leaves Number Fun 1-10 Sheets – trace, write, and form the number then count and color in the ten frame.
10) Acorn Tracing Lines – 4 different line shapes for fine motor practice.
Check it out in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Fun Books About Squirrels:
Other Fall Printables You’ll Love:
1) Fall Printable Worksheets Pack – 50-page pack for your little one to practice letter recognition, writing, counting, tracing, coloring and so much more.
2) Fall Leaves Number Sorting – Sort out the leaves and find which numbered tree they came from to practice number recognition, reading number words, and count with ten frames.
3) Fall Leaves Pick and Cover Letters – Pick a letter card then find and cover it on the playing mat.
4) Count and Compare Acorns – Your child will count and compare the groups of acorns to help the squirrel chose the bigger one.
5) Acorn Tracing Lines – Practice fine motor skills with these 4 different acorn-themed worksheets to help the squirrel grab the acorn!
6) Scarecrow Sums to 10 – So quick to set up in just a few minutes, you can sit back and relax while your preschooler or kindergartener has fun learning to solve simple sums to 10.
7) Scarecrow Number Tracing Strips – Combine fine motor practice with early math skills in this scarecrow-themed game to practice writing numbers 1 to 10.
8) Scarecrow Arrange By Size – Develop early math skills with these 3 scarecrow-themed image sets to arrange from smallest to biggest.
Fine Motor Tools For Your Classroom:
Other Fine Motor Printables You’ll Love:
1) St Patricks Fine Motor Mats – Your students can practice their playdough, coloring or any other crafty skills.
2) Pre Primer Sight Words Q Tip Painting – Your students will learn the 40 Dolch pre primer sight words with this set of q tip painting printable worksheets.
3) Parking Cars Tracing Lines – Kids will improve their fine motor skills and concentration at the same time. There are more than 10 different tracing patterns to choose from.
4) Pirate Alphabet Playdough Mats -Literacy and fine motor skills are developed with these colorful playdough letter mats that your students will surely treasure.
5) Acorn Tracing Lines – Practice fine motor skills with these 4 different acorn-themed worksheets. Help the squirrel grab the acorn!
