Fabulous Fall Activity Ideas and Resources for ESL Teachers

Fall is here! That means changing leaves, pumpkins, hot chocolate and warm sweaters!!!!
Fall is my favorite season. It is full of anticipation for the really cool celebrations to come (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years). I get to unpack my cooler clothes, I get to discover once again how much I love to sleep under a soft, thick blanket and I get to meet a whole new batch of students. For those of us who start teaching in September, fall is not a time of endings, it is a time of beginnings and all things are possible.

I started thinking about this post several years ago when my daughter enrolled in kindergarten in Eastern Turkey. The textbooks had not yet arrived at my daughter’s school and her teacher was at a loss for what to do with her 30 plus students until they arrived. I began thinking about all of the things we have around us that don’t cost a thing. Her school was located at the base of beautiful mountains and was in a neighborhood full of different kinds of trees and bushes. In the summer those trees were full of fruit, but in September, the fruit was gone and the leaves had begun to change colors. Those leaves can be the inspiration for an entire multi-disciplinary unit for English language learners of all ages.  As I continued thinking, leaves are just a start!

​How to Use Leaves to Teach English

Leaves are fascinating and free.  There are so many different things you could do with leaves in and English classroom.

Beginner:

• Numbers and Math Language: After collecting leaves, you could use them to practice numbers.  Have students count how many of each different kind of leaf they have, then expand the language to include math terms like addition, plus, subtraction, minus, multiplication, times, division, divided by.  Ask students to come up with different equations and quiz each other.  
• Grammar:  Teach students how to compare things.  Which group has the most leaves of one particular type?  Which group has more of one kind of leaf than another group?  Which leaves are bigger, which one is the biggest/smallest?  Which leaf is the reddest, yellowest, brownest, greenest, driest, most beautiful?  
• Scientific Language:  Teach students the names of the different parts of the leaf: the stem, the veins, the blade.  Then ask them what other things have a stem, veins and a blade create collages for each.  You could practice the question words to talk about leaves.  What else has veins?  What leaves do we eat?  What leaves don’t we eat?  Why do plants have leaves?  When do leaves start growing? When do leave fall?  Where did you find your leaves?  How do people use leaves?  Science is all about observation and inquiry.  Show students how to ask questions and then use their powers of observation to answer those questions.  For example, a beginner student could ask something like, “Do all leaves float?”  “Will a wet leaf or a dry leaf hold more weight before it sinks?”  Make sure beginning students have some vocabulary to work with and then ask them to create their own questions and hypothesis.  You could even do a science experiment using leaves.  For some ideas, visit. 7 Fun Science Activities for Kids About Leaves.
• Artistic Language:  Ask your students to create art using the leaves you have collected.  Teach them the words for the supplies they will need like paint, paint brush, paper, glue, scissors, etc. If you have been working with vocabulary previously, you can ask students to use leaves to make a picture of that vocabulary.  I recommend giving students a limited amount of time to work on their art so it doesn’t go on too long and become a distraction from the language learning goals. When students are finished, they can either introduce the piece to the class if it is a small class or you could have an art walk in which one third of the class put up their art and the other two thirds walk around and talk about the art with the artists.  Then rotate the exhibitors and the audience until everyone has had a chance to show their art.  For some inspiration on leaf art check out these posts:
  • simple drawings using leaves
  • 10 Cool Craft Ideas Using Leaves​
• Reading/Writing (Poetry):  I love using poetry with beginning students because it doesn’t focus on perfect grammar, rather it is all about creating a picture out of words.  Introduce students to simple poems about leaves and have them choose which leaves they feel best show what the poem is describing.  Brainstorm nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that relate to leaves.  Ask each student to choose a leaf (or several) and write a poem about it.  You can then attach the leaf next to the poem and display them together.
• Speaking/Listening: Ask your students to each choose a leaf.  Give it a name and then practice using language to introduce people by introducing the leaf to other leaves.  You can ask them to think of where the leaf is from, what it’s job is and if it has a family to make the introductions and conversations longer.

Intermediate: 

• Numbers and Math Language:  After collecting leaves, introduce students to the language of percentages and proportions: half as much, twice as many, two thirds of, one quarter of etc.  Ask students to talk to other students about how many leaves of different kinds they gathered.  After looking at all of the numbers, ask students to analyze the data they collected and report back on the percentages and proportions of leaves.  You could also have students think of questions to ask each other like “What percentage of your leaves are yellow?”  Students would then ask the other groups their questions, get the answers and compare them.
• Grammar: You could use leaves to practice conditionals.  “If I was a leaf,  I would fly high in the wind and see the world.”  “If I was the last leaf on a tree, I would be lonely.”  You could ask students to write a short story about their lives if they were a leaf.  Then illustrate the stories with the leaves and make a class book with all of the stories either to keep in the classroom or to send home with the students depending on how many copies you can make.
• Scientific Language:  You could introduce the students to the idea of classification and ask the students to sort their leaves into “families”. Some ways to classify leaves are: broad vs. narrow blade, leaf attachment (do the leaves alternate on a branch or do 2 leaves attach at the same place?), simple vs. compound leaves, leaf lobes, leaf margins (either smooth or with “teeth”).  For more information about leaf classification, check this page by Oregon State University.
• Artistic Language:  Show students a variety of works of art that feature leaves.  Introduce them to vocabulary that is used to discuss color, texture, mood, tone, composition, viewpoint, lighting and shape.  For a full list of words used to describe these, visit the Art Words List and Critique Terms Bank. ​I wouldn’t recommend teaching all of these words, just choose the ones you think will be most useful to the students you teach.  Students could play an art game in which they are asked to choose a three of the words they learned to describe art and create a painting of leaves that reflects those three terms.  Students could then try to guess what terms they were working with.
  • Autumn Leaves by Georgia O’Keefe
  • Drawing of Oak Leaves by Leonardo Da Vinci
  • Trees in the Landscape by Claude Monet
  • Roots by Frida Kahlo
• Reading/Writing (Descriptive Paragraphs): Ask students to think about how leaves look, smell, sound, and feel.  Brainstorm words that describe those things and show students how to write a descriptive paragraph.  You could ask student to describe one of the leaves they collected or you could ask them to think of a leaf, plant or tree that was particularly meaningful to them and describe that.  Wikihow has simple, straight-forward instructions on how to write a descriptive paragraph.

Advanced

• Numbers and Math Language: Watch this super cool TED talk The Magic of Fibonacci Numbers by Arthur Benjamin.  Then ask students to examine their leaves to see if Fibonacci numbers are prominently represented.  Have their students perform some of the calculations found in the video and why they are true for the leaves they have found.  You could also ask students to calculate how many leaves they think are found on an average tree.  They could weigh the leaves they collected and then calculate how much the leaves on a typical tree might weigh.  I have found that my advanced students often struggle with large numbers in English.  Practicing saying larger numbers aloud and comparing them with their classmates numbers would give them much needed practice.
• ​Grammar:  You could examine clauses with your students starting with simple sentences.  Students could practice creating simple sentences using one of the leaves they collected as the subject. They could then add another clause creating a compound or complex sentence.  You could then continue on and show students how to make adjective clauses, adverbial clauses, and noun clauses. Once they have all of those clauses down, you could have them write about collecting leaves using a variety of different kinds of sentences.
• Scientific Language:  Advanced students  are ready to start doing some serious research in English.  Ask them what they know about leaves and what they don’t know.  Have them each write several scientific questions about leaves.  At this point you could either ask them to research their own questions or you could redistribute the questions, making sure that each student is given several different questions to choose from.  Ask each student to choose one question, research the answer to it, create a poster and present their findings to the class.  In classes of more than 10 or so, you might want to ask about a third of the class to present at a time while the other two-thirds of the class visit the posters and ask questions.  
• Artistic Language: Examine the different ways leaves have been used to create art in different cultures.  Ask students to read articles and watch videos and discuss the difference between art and craft.  Is there a difference?  How do people talk about them and value them differently?
  • The art of making leaves into toys in Okinawa (article)
  • The art of leaf carving in China (video)
  • Palm Leaf Manuscripts in Today’s Bali (article)
  • Omid Aside Makes Incredibly Beautiful Art out of Dead Leaves (article and video)
  • Bush Medicine Leaves Dreaming Story – Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery (article)

• Reading and Writing Ask each student to pick a different kind of tree and write a classic, 5 paragraph essay about it.  First ask them to brainstorm all of the things they know about that kind of tree.  Then ask them to think of as many questions as they can about things they don’t know about that tree.  To write a good essay they have to narrow the topic down so ask them to choose only one question to answer.  Now that they have a focus, ask them to do some research and bring it in to class with them.  Allow them to discuss their research with their classmates.  Where were they able to find good information, what are they having trouble finding?  Then show them the structure of a 5 paragraph essay with an introductory paragraph, 3 body paragraphs and a concluding paragraph.  For ideas about how to write great hooks, check out How to Help Your ESL Students Write Great Hooks.

​

Fall Resources to Use to Teach English

Songs About Fall:
Autumn Leaves – Nat King Cole
Wake Me Up When September Ends – Green Day
Autumn in New York – Frank Sinatra
​Autumn Changes – Donna Summer

Short Videos About Fall:
Autumn Leaf Hoppers – National Geographic. This video people talk about their experiences traveling in New England to look at the fall leaves. 
I Love Fall- The New Yorker  This humorous video pokes fun at the things people like to do in the fall.
The Pitfalls of Growing a Monster Pumpkin – Scientific American. This video explains the process of growing huge pumpkins. 

Short Stories About Fall:
High and Lifted Up – Mike Krath This is a short story about a boy who becomes a leaf and blows around his neighborhood. 
Catch an Autumn Leaf – Adrian Newington This short story is about making wishes.

Movies in the Fall:
Pieces of April In spite of the title, this movie is about a young woman’s efforts to create a nice Thanksgiving dinner for her family in spite of a series of difficulties she must overcome.  It is about the imperfect relationships people have with their families and how they work to come together anyway.
Dead Poets Society  This movie takes place in the fall as students start school in an all-boys boarding school.  This is one of my favorite movies but it is a tear jerker and deals with some pretty serious topics.  

As always, preview any materials you are going to give to your class to make sure they are appropriate for your students.  

I hope you and your students are enjoying the fall semester!! If you have any questions, additional ideas or things you would like me to write a future blog post about, leave me a comment below!