Some Autumn activities from Twinkl Teaching Resources

Harry brings home a few bits of homework every week but Mia doesn't have any apart from her reading, and despite me assuring her that she has many years of homework ahead of her, she's always asking for something that she can do while Harry gets on with his.

With Autumn most definitely in the air, I had a look at the Twinkl website for some Autumn themed resources that would be suitable for her as she begins her schooling in Reception.

At our recent parents evening her teacher suggested that she needs a bit of help with number recognition, so I printed out a set of these Autumn Leaf Numbers (free download). They are A4 sized, but I printed them at 50% and laminated them to make smaller number leaves. To begin with we just used the numbers 0 - 10 and we played various games with them - I hid them around the living room and asked her to name each number in turn as she brought it to me, we put them in the right order and I took away numbers from small sequences and asked her which one was missing.

I think it really helped her to have something tactile to hold and play with! When we've finished playing I'm going to stick them up in her bedroom so we can look at them together while she's getting ready and I'm brushing her hair.

While I had the laminator out, I also laminated each child an Autumn Tree Playdough Mat (Twinkl subscriber resource). Both children love play dough and I really love the Twinkl range of play dough mats, making specific shapes is great for their fine motor skills and finger muscles, especially making the little leaves. Harry found a piece of textured Lego that was the perfect size and shape to make the veins on the leaves, and he spent ages on this.

Another thing that we need to work on with Mia is her pencil grip. Although she does lots of colouring, drawing and writing, she doesn't hold her pencil properly and so it's something that we need to practice. Activities like this Autumn Shadow Matching Worksheet (Twinkl subscriber resource) are great for her because they are quick, simple and fun. She was so pleased with herself when she correctly matched the shapes.

We also practiced her cutting skills with an Autumn Leaf Sequencing Worksheet (Twinkl subscriber resource). She found it a little challenging to work out which leaf shape should come next so she just chose her favourite one to stick in the box! Both children then had a go at some Symmetrical Leaf Drawing Templates (free download) which require them to complete the second half of a leaf shape and then colour it in, and even Mia managed a good go at this.

I really do love Twinkl resources, it's great to be able to print out a couple of things during the day for the children to get on with after school and there are so many different themes that I can always find something that will interest them or that fits in with the topics that they are learning about at school.

I have been given a Premium subscription to Twinkl but I am under no obligation to write about them, I just like to share their resources because I think they are brilliant!