The Leaf Thief Story-related Math Activities for Preschoolers -

The Leaf Thief Story-related Math Activities for Preschoolers

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The Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming tells the story of a squirrel that becomes very distressed when it notices that a leaf is missing from its tree, and accuses other animals of being the leaf thief, until his friend Bird finally makes him understand that leaves falling is part of the autumn season.

The Leaf Thief FREE 22-page Math Pack with ten different activity sets to go with the story, which you can download at the end of this post.

The Leaf Thief Math Pack

There are many math activities you can do using this storybook. These are just a few ideas that you can use with your preschoolers in the classroom or at home for fun and educational math activities related to this story.

I will suggest printing each page using white cardstock and laminating it to make them last longer and use them multiple times. Then, have children use a dry-erase marker to complete some of the activities, instead of a pencil, crayon, or other marker.

The Leaf Thief Memory Game

Memory games are fun and engaging for preschoolers. Most importantly, they boost their cognitive development, visual perception, memory, and concentration skills, helping them identify and recognize differences between images, shapes, and colors. These games also help children develop their language and vocabulary, fine motor skills, and eye-hand coordination, while improving their social-emotional development and boosting their self-esteem and confidence.

This game can be played as an individual activity or with a partner. Keep it super simple and have the children place the cards face down. Each child has to select a card randomly and try to match it with its double. The child who matches the most cards wins the game.

The Leaf Thief Size Discrimination

Learning to discriminate between sizes helps preschoolers improve their critical thinking, observational skills, and ability to classify and organize information. This enables them to recognize differences and similarities in people, animals, objects, and their environments, as well as develop their organizational skills by sorting and grouping objects by size.

This free pack contains two size discrimination activities: one to circle the larger item in the row and the other to circle the smaller item. Both activities come with three strips each, featuring different animals from the story. You can either keep the sheets together or divide the strips.

The Leaf Thief Patterns

Learning patterns benefits preschoolers by building foundational skills in math, literacy, and cognitive development, fostering logical thinking and problem-solving, improving their ability to make predictions and understand sequences, enhancing their vocabulary, and enhancing their memory and reasoning skills.

I included three different pattern activities in the pack. One to complete the pattern, another one to copy the pattern, both with two sheets of four strips of varying pattern combinations each, and the last one to create their own pattern. I also included two sheets of tiles with nine different designs related to the story, which can be used with these activities.

The Leaf Thief Visual Discrimination

Visual discrimination skills benefit preschoolers by improving reading readiness, math skills, fine motor control, and overall cognitive development. This ability to recognize similarities and differences in objects and symbols is foundational for distinguishing letters and words, understanding numbers, completing puzzles, and observing details in their environment.

Another way to help children practice their visual discrimination is to present objects in a row, some exactly alike and one different, for them to identify it. This pack comes with one sheet with four strips for this activity. You can either keep the sheets together or divide the strips.

The Leaf Thief Shape Match

Learning how to match shapes helps preschoolers develop crucial cognitive skills, including attention, focus, problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and memory. This foundation lays the groundwork for learning math and geometry concepts, enhances their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, and improves their language and communication skills.

This pack includes one sheet with five matching shapes, including a circle, square, octagon, oval, and pentagon.

The Leaf Thief Count and Graph

Learning how to count and graph brings multiple benefits to preschoolers, strengthening critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, and helping them develop early mathematical skills such as counting, sorting, and one-to-one correspondence. It also promotes the children’s language development and the ability to understand quantities and represent them using graphs, laying the foundation for future mathematical operations and data analysis.

This pack comes with one sheet divided into two sections. The upper rectangle features pictures of five characters from the story, accompanied by a graph displaying the same images and squares labeled with numbers 1 through 5. To complete the activity, children need to count how many of each character appears in the upper rectangle and color or cover the corresponding number of squares with a small manipulative to represent that amount, thereby completing the graph.

The Leaf Thief Mini Puzzles

Puzzles are highly beneficial for preschoolers, helping them develop multiple cognitive skills, including memory, problem-solving, and logical thinking. They also help the children develop their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and spatial awareness, enhancing their social-emotional development and self-esteem.

The pack includes one page with four mini puzzles, designed to be cut using different patterns. Depending on the developmental level of your preschoolers, please provide them with the number of mini-puzzles they can handle at one time. Once they put the puzzles together, extend the activity by discussing the images and retelling the story with each of them.

The Leaf Thief Count and Clip Cards

Some of the skills children work on using count and clip cards, such as pressing the clothespins to mark the correct number, include fine motor, problem-solving, and hand-eye coordination. Equally important is that these activities enhance the children’s counting abilities and number recognition.

This pack comes with one page with six different clip cards. Children must count the objects on each card and place a clothespin over the correct numbers.

The Leaf Thief Counting

Counting is an essential skill that preschoolers need to learn, as it helps them understand the meaning of numbers and serves as the foundation for all other number concepts, improving their one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, counting, hand-eye coordination, fine motor, and addition skills.

The math pack includes three types of counting activities, which are:

The Leaf Thief Counting & Writing the Number

I’ve included two sheets with two different yet similar activities each. In the first one, children have to count the objects, circle the correct number, and write that number in the line using a crayon, marker, or pencil.

The second one is simpler. Children must count and write the numbers in the squares.

The Leaf Thief Counting Mats

You will find one sheet with two different counting mats and two different dice, one marked with dots and the other with numbers.

You can have one or two students playing this game. To play, each child has to roll one dice, identify the number, and find the same number in his/her mat to cover, using bingo chips, mini erasers, buttons, pom-poms, mini leaves, or any other type of small manipulatives. If the number is already covered, the child loses the turn, and the other child rolls the dice. The winner is the child who covers all his/her numbers first. Of course, you can also use real dice instead.

Other Books about Fall and Leaves

These are some of the books I like for the season. They can be found at your local library, used bookstore, and on Amazon. If you would like to add them to your collection, you can use my affiliate links embedded in the titles for immediate access.

Crunchy Leaves, Cozy Sweaters by Essie Bell is an enjoyable book written in rhyme. It showcases various activities that everyone can enjoy every day throughout the fall.

What is Fall? by Random House introduces children to the wonders of fall with illustrations, holes to peek through, an autumnal color palette, and simple, rhyming text.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro tells the story of an old lady who swallows some leaves, clothes, a pumpkin, and a rope to welcome the Fall season with humorous illustrations and a spin on a classic rhyme.

Pete the Cat Falling for Autumn by James Dean discusses how Pete comes to realize there’s so much to enjoy and be thankful for about autumn when he discovers corn mazes, hayrides, and apple picking.

A Very Big Fall by Emmy Kastner is a funny and heartwarming story about three adorable autumn leaves, surprised by their changing colors and the promise of the fall to come, perfect for any child who struggles with change.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s First Fall by Eric Carle will teach children about seasonal sensory experiences, such as observing the leaves as they change color, listening to the whooshing wind, feeling the warmth of a warm, cozy sweater, and much more.

We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger utilizes accessible rhyming text and engaging sound effects to tell the story of three friends embarking on a big adventure as they hike over a mountain and through a forest to collect leaves of all kinds and colors.

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson will encourage children to share feelings of wonder and empathy as they listen to the story of Fletcher the fox, who is concerned about nature and wants to understand the changing seasons.

Pin It For Later

If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable, but want to save it for later, pin this to your Math board on Pinterest.

You can use these ideas on their own, but I invite you to combine them with the free activities I offer in The Leaf Thief Literacy Pack to take advantage of the opportunities this book provides. Remember that for a more comprehensive and complete educational process, you should not divorce literacy from math, science, or any other domain. They intermingle and complement each other.