Autumn Week for our Elephants, Hippos and Zebras

Dear BB Parents
The activities set out is just some fun ideas to keep our BB kiddies
stimulated and busy. Please don’t feel stressed that you HAVE to do it …
it is merely ideas, and should most definitely not frustrate parents or kids.
We have tried to use items which should be available in your home, and
we limited activities which need to be printed.
The hyperlinks to the online sites will be sent via WhatsApp to make it
easier to reach those sites.
Some things to keep in mind:
 Our little ones feed off our emotions … try your best to stay calm around
our little people.
 Kids learn all the time … you don’t have to set out activities for them to
learn … they can learn by helping in the kitchen, helping in the garden or
just sitting on mom or dad’s lap and have the opportunity to ask their
never ending list of “why questions”
 Spend lots of time outside.
 Maintain a good routine
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any queries, if you want to
share ideas or just need to chat.
Bright Regards,
Your BB Team
 Keep in mind that many activities refer to fall instead of autumn. This is a
great opportunity to explain synonyms to your little ones.

Specials Activity for the week:

 Autumn Picnic. Pack a picnic basket but pack only autumn coloured snacks
(red, yellow, orange & brown) Brown bread sandwiches, naartjies, baby
tomatoes, cheese, cheese curls and some yummy orange juice. Make sure you
let your little ones help to choose the snacks. Have a fun autumn family picnic.

Songs & Rhymes for the week:

Autumn Leaves are falling down

(The Learning Station)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPm7JTGIHcA

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Autumn counting rhyme

Autumn movement Rhyme

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 Stories for the week:

Autumn Elf is Happy it is finally autumn (this story includes a little

life lesson as the end of the page.
https://storyland.ca/story-1523-autumn-elf-happy-finally-autumn/

When the leaf blew in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uASmtf7gT4

Fine Motor Activities for the week:

Monday: Apple scented play dough (see page 5)
Tuesday: Build a Puzzle (at least 24 pieces)
Wednesday: Leaves on a washing line. Collect a
bunch of leaves. Make a small washing line with
any kind of string (put it at a height where kids
have to lift their arms just a little over their heads,
this way their arm muscles will get some exercise)
Set a timer and see how many leaves they can
hang using washing pegs within 2 minutes, now
take the leaves off and repeat to see if they can better their score (great counting
activity)
Thursday: Falling leave finger print counting (see page 6)
Friday: Autumn leave lacing (see page 7-9)

Active Time Activities for the week:

Monday: Family walk. Go for a nice stroll through your neighbourhood (please always
remember that safety comes first). See if you can see any changes in
nature. Discuss autumn words like hibernating and evergreen trees.
See who can spot the most autumn colours (red, orange, yellow and
brown)
Tuesday: Picking apples (see page 10)

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Wednesday: Autumn Leave Blowing fun. Decorate a couple of tissues with autumn
colours. Blow the tissue leaves in the air and see how long you can keep your leaves up
in the air before they fall down.
Thursday: Autumn leave throwing game (See page 11)
Friday: Autumn tree gym session. Use papers of cut out leaves in autumn colours.
Every time you hold up the specific colour a specific action
will be performed (you don’ have to use visual keys you
can just say the colour). Have a phrase like” awesome
autumn antics” whenever you say the phrase everybody
does their best “autumn leave falling from a tree dance”
Red: Run really fast on the spot.
Yellow: Do jumping jacks
Brown: Touch your opposite arm to your opposite toe (this
is great for midline crossing)
Orange: Lie on your back and pretend to ride your bicycle.

Activity Time Activities for the week:

Monday: Art Activity leaf Paint (see page 12)
Tuesday: Build an autumn Tower. Using only autumn
colour blocks build the highest tower possible.
Wednesday: Autumn maze (first trace with your
finger, then pack the path with small items like beans
and lastly trace with a crayon) (see page 13)
Thursday: Autumn sensory bin. (see page 14) and
Autumn Leave Fun Faces (see page 14)
Friday: Colour by number (see page 15) Please
encourage correct pencil grip (see page 16 for ideas on this).
Autumn Cutting (see page 17) Colour these beautiful leaves and then use a junior
scissor to cut. (most of our children are still working on their cutting skills, help them by
making sure they can grasp the paper and encourage them to turn the paper as the
cutting continues)

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Apple scented play dough:
1 cup flour

1 cup water

1/4 cup salt

1/2 tbsp oil

1tsp cream of tarter

1 tsp nutmeg

1tsp cinnamon

Red food colouring

 Place all the dry ingredients in a medium size saucepan and mix them
together. If you have the patience on the specific day let your little one
help. It is a fun math activity.
 Next, add the water, oil, and food colouring into the saucepan and mix all of
the ingredients together well. I would suggest adding a lot of red food
colouring if you want nice bright red playdough.
 Cook the playdough mixture over a medium heat. You will need to stir the
mixture constantly for 4-5 minutes until it begins to form a ball. Once the
ball of playdough has formed flatten your playdough, fold it, and continue to
flip it for about another minute until all the stickiness is gone .
 Remove your apple scented playdough from the heat and let it cool for a
few minutes. Once the playdough is cool enough to handle, knead the
playdough. Let the kids get in on the kneading action. If it’s still sticky, add
a little bit of flour. If you cooked it long enough then extra flour shouldn’t be
needed!
 Now for the fun part! Enjoy playing with your apple scented playdough!!
You could use apple or leaf shaped cookie cutters to make shapes in the
playdough, you could make apples by rolling the playdough into balls and
adding small sticks as stems, you can make leaf imprints on rolled out
pieces of dough (spray the leaves with some cook and spray to avoid them
from sticking to the dough) or you could just enjoy squashing, squeezing
and making patterns in the playdough.

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Falling leave finger print counting:
 Use autumn colour paints and make fingerprint
leaves on the trees. Make the corresponding
number of leaves as per the number box.
 Please keep in mind that we are still learning to
identify and name the numbers, everybody
might not be able to identify all the numbers as
yet, however this is an awesome activity to
practise number recognition and counting.

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Autumn Leave Lacing:
 Print or draw the 3 leave patterns. (it works better on harder paper)
 Make holes where the white dots are.
 Use a shoe lace or some other sturdy string and start threading.

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Picking Apples:
 Make a tree on the floor with tape, or draw a tree with chalk.
 Place apples on some of the branches. (you can use anything for pretend apples
if you don’t want to use real apples).
 Now walk/balance on the branches to go pick those yummy apples.
 To make it a bit more challenging you can walk backwards to put the apples in
the basket.

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Autumn Leave throwing game:
 Stick some leaves or leaf cut outs on a wall.
 You can make this a number/colour or your childs name activity, by writing
different numbers, have different coloured leaves or the letters of your child’s
name written on the leaves.
 Call out a colour, number or letter and let your little one throw at the specific leaf
with a beanbag or a ball.
 If you are doing the name game version, let them go and remove the leaves as it
has been thrown and pack out their number name.
 To add some extra physical activity to this, let them run and pick up the ball after
every throw or let them do 3 jumping jacks if they missed. If they hit it mom or
dad, they should do 3 jumping jacks 

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Leave Painting:
 Collect leaves from outside. Try to get different sizes and shapes.
 Make it even more fun by using braai tongs to pick the leaves up.
 Set out some autumn colour paints (or be creative in using stuff from the grocery
cupboard to make coloured paste like coffee, turmeric, some drawn tea bags)
 Dip your leaves into your colours and go paint.

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Autumn Maze:

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Autumn Sensory Bin
 Fill a container with sand, some
leaves and some plastic animals.
You can add some cinnamon to
add another sensory element.
 Use a fork (preferably a plastic fork
to rake the leaves).
 Blindfold your little one and let them
feel around for some of the plastic
animals as you call out the animal
names.

Autumn Leave funny faces

 Go hunt for some leaves (hopefully you have got some left in your garden after
all our fun activities )
 Clean the leaves
 Grab some markers and see who can draw the funniest faces.

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Autumn Colour by Numbers

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Autumn Cutting Activity

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Pencil grip trick
If your little one is struggling with pencil grip. Try
this trick.
 Get a pompom or a small ball of crumpled
tissues.
 Put the ball in the palm of their hand and let
them hold it in place with their pinky and ring
finger,
 Then use the other fingers to hold the pencil!
It makes it very difficult to hold the pencil in
some of the more immature grasps.

This is the correct pencil grip. Take note

of how low down the pencil is held.

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