Go on a Leaf Hunt! An Autumn Teambuilding Activity

I taught in Florida for 20 years, a place where books about seasons can leave you with a little feeling of FOMO. The leaves in Florida only come in two colors. Light green. And dark green.

Oh, and dead brown … so three.

Unless they’ve been on some grand vacation, kids from the tropics don’t really have a mental framework for things like red and orange leaves. I once had an ambitious neighbor who planted a maple tree in her front yard. It stood out like a sore thumb among all the palm trees, but it did manage to survive the heat better than we all thought it would. When the first few leaves became red and dropped to the ground, I ran right over and asked if I could borrow them to show my students.😂

You can see why going on a leaf hunt might require a trip to the craft store first.

There are so many fun activities you can do after reading Steve Metzger’s picture book We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt. One of my favorites is to plan a leaf hunt teambuilder in our classroom. It’s easy to do and once you’ve customized your leaves, you can save them and use them year after year.

Planning Your Leaf Hunt

• Get a pack of artificial leaves. I found a set of 50 at a dollar store.

• Customize the leaves with a specific skill you’re working on. (See the examples above.) It works for several subjects … math, reading, science … anything that allows a match. Plan to make one leaf per student. If you have an odd number of students, you’ll need to play too.

• Hide the leaves around your classroom before the students arrive.

• Have fun reading and talking about the book. Then, invite the kids to go on a leaf hunt! Each student should find only one leaf.

• Once all the leaves are found, have the children pair up by finding their match. For smoother management, I have mine stand back-to-back and wait until everyone has found their partner.

• At this point, pose questions to help them get to know each other a little better. The questions can be as silly or as serious as you want them to be, depending on the grade you teach, the time of year, and your students’ interests. You can even have the kids trade leaves with someone else and find new partners so they have a chance to talk to more than one person.

WHY AUTUMN? 👉Resist the urge to save all your teambuilding activities for the first week of school. Kids tend to stay in comfortable groups, which is normal, but communities grow stronger when we make an effort to get to know each other better over time. Often we’re pleasantly surprised by the connections we make when we’re gently nudged out of our comfort zones.

Check back in a few weeks. I’ll be sharing another teambuilder inspired by Santa and his love for cookies!🍪

Happy teaching!

In the Loop