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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Theming your classroom instruction and decorations around the different seasons is an easy way to keep your kindergarten classroom looking and feeling fresh all year round. Picking fall as your first theme gives you a few months with a dedicated color palette of greens, reds and yellows, and plenty of hands-on experiences from collecting leaves as they change colors to field trips to the local apple orchards. You can also put a little fall into your academic stations, and this apple and leaf alphabet match game fits perfectly with the season.
Letter Case Matching
One of the key skills in kindergarten is to help students master the alphabet, and be able to recognize letters in both their capital and lowercase forms. The key to embedding this knowledge is repetition, and the key to keeping kindergarteners motivated through repetitive tasks is by making them into a game. This apple letter matching game is a great way for them to practice a few letters at a time, or as a review game once you’ve covered the whole alphabet.
Preparing Your Apple Letter Matching Game
For this activity you will need:
Paper
Printer
Other tools for extension activities below: pencils, playdough, tape or wooden pegs etc
Optional: Laminator
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.
Further Teaching for Fall Theme Letter Matching
In this apple and leaf alphabet match game, students use apples and leafs to match capital to lowercase letters. All the apples and leaves look the same which can make it a little tricky as you add more letters into the mix, but your students will quickly master the activity. To keep this apple letter matching activity fresh all season long, try some of these extension activities:
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Go apple “picking” – you might not live in a part of the world with a readily accessible apple orchard nearby. Never fear! Bring in a small potted plant or large branch and tape the apples all over. Students then take it in turns to pick up a leaf from the pile and hunt for the apple that matches it. Make it a memorable experience by giving out slices of different apples as they match capital to lowercase letters.
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Pick up a pencil or playdough – once students start to master this fall theme letter matching game, you can use it as a tool for helping them with their letter creation. Have a bank of tracing pages and lined paper ready, and students pick an apple (or a leaf) to practice their writing. Make it a fun challenge by burying the leaves and apples in your sandbox and have students dig for them as a way of picking which letters to work on next. If your students are not quite ready to start writing yet, make it a playdough letter formation station instead!
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Play memory – finally, you’ll see a dramatic increase in engagement and success in your kindergarten classroom whenever you turn your academic centers into games. Memory is a great tool for helping students to match capital to lowercase letters and this apple and leaf alphabet match lends itself perfectly to that game. Simply lay out all the apples and leaves that you want to play with (making sure you have all the correct matches!) and have students take turns to turn over an apple and leaf. For extra letter recognition practice, have them read the name and sound of the letter they turn over, even if it’s not a match.
More Apple Themed Centers for Literacy and Math:
My Apple Themed Centers is a variety pack of 10 games focused on early literacy, math and fine motor skills.
These are the games included:
1) Alphabet Playdough/Fine Motor Mats – Your students will use playdough to form the uppercase letters working on literacy and fine motor skills at the same time. Other options are using mini erasers to build the letter shape, cutting up black paper and using the pieces to make a mosaic, using dry erase markers to rainbow write the letters, etc.
2) Apple Missing Letters – There is a sequence of 5 capital letters shown with 1 missing. They are given 2 options to choose from and will need to figure out the correct missing letter.
3) Rhyming Words – There are 3 CVC words pictured and labeled. Students will need to choose the 2 that rhyme.
4) Apple CVC Write the Room – You can use this center to practice CVC building 2 separate times or with the class divided into 2 different groups of students. 10 CVC words are included in each set (green or red apple). There is also a recording sheet and answer key provided.
5) Dolch Pre Primer Sight Word Building – Students will need to find the correct apple letters to form the 40 sight words on the baskets.
6) Missing Numbers to 20 – There is a sequence of 5 numbers shown on the card and your student will need to figure out the correct missing number. 2 options are given to help guide them.
7) Apple Ten Frame Matching – Use these 2 piece puzzles as an independent math center or with small groups.
8) Apple Pattern Strips – ABABAB, ABCABC, AABAAB, ABBABB pattern strips included. You can use this with colored pompoms, dot stickers, dot markers, or apple mini erasers.
9) Addition Yes/No Cards – Students are shown an addition sum to 10 and will need to decide if the equation is true or false. Give them some wooden pegs or clothespins to mark their yes/no answer and make it a combined fine motor activity.
10) Apple 2D Shape Sorting – Print out multiple copies of the pages with 2D-shaped apples. Students will need to sort these according to the shape shown on the basket. 12 different 2D shapes included.
Check it out in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Alphabet Books We Love:
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.
Browse My Most Popular Literacy Activites:
1) Valentines Alphabet Clip Strips – Kids will choose among 5 different letters on the strip to identify the matching ones.
2) Alphabet Beginning Sound Coloring Pages – Watch your child become more familiar with each letter of the alphabet as they practice coloring in the objects with that beginning sound.
3) Tommy Turkey’s Alphabet Pie – This turkey-themed letter recognition activity is so simple to prep and makes a great file folder game!
4) Pirate Alphabet Playdough Mats – Just print out the playing mats and ask your child to form the letters out using the playdough provided.
5) Farm Alphabet Find and Cover Letters – Work on letter recognition any time of the year!
6) Werewolf Spin and Cover – Kids will race to find all the letters on their mat this Halloween.
7) Bunny Burrows Game – Fun game for small groups or circle time where students will catch a bunny and say out the sound.
8) Letter-saurus Fossil Digging – Dinosaur lovers will enjoy being a pretend paleontologist and finding all the letters.
9) Alphabet Handwriting Worksheets – Practice lowercase and capital letters with these print-and-go pages.
10) Rainy Day Alphabet – 1 printable, many ways to use.
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Nursery Rhymes Themed Literacy and Math Centers
