Add these free printable leaf shape mats to your fall activities for preschoolers and kindergartners. They’d be great during your next leaf theme or just because your students are enamored with the leaves changing colors!
Use the mats to explore and practice two-dimensional shapes with your students. You can pair these leaf shape play dough mats with many different materials. So the kids are sure to be engaged as they practice early math skills in hands-on ways.
The leaves shape printable also gives the kids the chance to work on those ever important fine motor skills, too. Not too shabby for a super simple math printable!
Related: Free Preschool Printables
I love making themed shape mats for kids. They’re a great way for young children to explore two-dimensional shapes in hands-on ways with a variety of materials. And switching up the theme brings a bit of whimsy and novelty to the activity. Which tends to up engagement, in my experience.
Be sure to get your own copy of the leaves shape mats at the very bottom of this post.
Leaf Shape Mats
Below you’ll find tips for prepping the leaf shapes, as well as a few ideas for using them with kids. Please note that you don’t have to do things the same way we did! You and your students might come up with a few brand new ideas, and that’s wonderful!
How to Prep the Leaves Shape Play Dough Mats
There really isn’t much to getting the leaf shape mats ready to go. I find the low-prep to be a bonus, what about you?
Start off by grabbing the materials you’ll need to prepare the mats. This is what we used (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
And that’s about it! You can also break out your laminator and laminate the sheets instead. That just depends on your preferences.
While you’re gathering supplies, why not pick up a few things to use alongside the shape mats? Here are some ideas:
- Play dough
- Acrylic leaves and pumpkins
- Fall-themed pompoms
- Unifix cubes
- Leaf mini erasers
- Dry erase markers
Once you have the materials you want, it’s time to get the leaf shape mats ready. And that is so simple! Grab the free printable at the bottom of this post. Then save it to your computer and open it in the most up-to-date version of Adobe Reader. Print out the leaf shapes, making extra copies as desired.
Related: Math Activities for Preschoolers
And then pop those mats into dry erase pockets. Or laminate the pages. And that’s it! The shape mats are ready to be used with the kids.
Using the Leaf Shape Mats with Kids
As I mentioned earlier, you can use the shape play dough mats in a variety of ways and with a variety of materials. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Set out some play dough to go along with the leaf shapes. Have your students use the play dough to cover the shapes on the mats. To make it more challenging, have the kids use their fingers or pencils to draw the shapes on flattened play dough.
Related: Spider Shape Mats
- Have your students use fall-themed loose parts to trace around the outside of the shapes on the leaf shape mats. Acrylic leaves and fall mini erasers are great for this.
- Grab some craft materials (like pompoms) or math manipulatives (like Unifix cubes). Kids can use their fine motor muscles to make the shapes on the mats, too.
- Give the children dry erase markers. Have them trace over the large shapes or the small shapes, depending on their needs and preferences.
- Add some extra math practice by challenging the kids to count how many side each shape has. Or how many manipulatives it takes to trace around each shape.
- Pair the leaf shape mats with a simple sensory writing tray. Your students can draw each shape in the sensory material for extra practice.
As I said earlier, these are just some of the ways we’ve used the printable leaf shapes. You can come up with something completely different for your students. Don’t forget to get your own copy of the leaf shape mats at the bottom of this post.
What Shapes are in the Leaf Shape Mats Printable?
The full-page mats are available in these shapes:
- Circle
- Rectangle
- Triangle
- Oval
- Square
- Octagon
- Diamond
- Rhombus
- Pentagon
- Trapezoid
- Hexagon
- Heart
- Star
In addition to the 13 full-size shape mats, there are 2 “I can find shapes!” mats. These pages have small versions of each of the above shapes. The small shape pages are perfect for shape hunts around the classroom or the playground. Or for tracing the shapes in smaller form.
More Leaf Activities for Kids
Here are a few more ideas to go along with the leaf shape mats:
- Leaf Sensory Bottle
- Pre-Writing Activity Leaf Theme
- Leaf Sensory Bin
- Fall Play Dough Leaf Impressions
- Magnetic Letter Leaf Match
- Fall Leaf Counting Puzzles
You can read about even more preschool leaf activities if you’re looking for additional ideas!
Fall Lesson Plans
Let Preschool Teacher 101 save you a ton of time with fully-developed, done-for-you early childhood resources. We have hundreds of lesson plans and supplemental resources (like a song series, dramatic play packs, STEM challenges, and so much more). Be sure to check out The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101, a membership for teachers like you. Members get access to our materials and members-only content at a very reduced rate.
Click on the image below to get our leaves lesson plans. The lesson plan pack comes with a weekly overview, detailed daily lesson plans, book suggestions, editable lesson plan templates, and related printables.
Here are a few more fall-themed lesson plans for your classroom:
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Get the Leaf Shape Mats
The leaf shape play dough mats are available to members of Fun-A-Day’s (free!) email community. If you’re a member, enter your email in the form below to have the download link sent to your inbox. If you’re not a member, you can join us by entering your information in the same form. Then you’ll get the leaf shape mats as a welcome gift!
You can find the form here if you don’t see it above.
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