Chelsea Rodda, Flinders University Student

Kindergarten 2015

Session Plan:

Autumn Leaves Sorting

Date: 20/5/15 Time/duration: 20 minutes

Children: whole group

Tuning in:
As children arrive on the mat, I will play a
familiar song to get them tuned in and ready
to participate, called Feathers, Fur or Fins?
This song will lead into our sorting activity, it
is good because it talks about sorting animals
into feathers, fur or fins.

Do:
First, a short introduction to the autumn
leaves we will be looking at today. What
makes them different from each other? The
colours and the shape. There are yellow,
brown, red, and purple leaves. There are
round and pointy leaves, what else about
them makes them different?
Next I will explain that I will be handing out a
leaf to everyone, so everyone gets a turn to
hold it and feel it; and then we will play a
song, and it goes like this Here we play in
the leaves. Now you can practice it, Ill say
the first bit, and then you repeat it back to me
so you know the words.
Now, we will sit in a circle around the blue
mat, I will bring the leaves around to each
child, and ask them to choose one leaf to
hold. When everyone has a leaf, I will play the
song, maybe twice through.
I will now choose a leaf from the whiteboard,
and ask everyone if you have a leaf that
looks like this, has.colour, and .shape.
Place it in the first square. We will sort them
into piles according to their four categories
(what we discussed at the start).
Now we will look at: which square of leaves
do you think has the most leaves? Which
square has the least amount of leaves?
Next we will count each square; as we count I
will tally them on the white board, using the

Area: Kindy room mat

No. of

EYLF Outcomes:
Outcome 1: Children have
strong sense of identity
Feel safe, secure & supported
Develop autonomy, resilience &
agency
X Develop knowledgeable and
confident self
X Learn to interact with care, empathy &
respect

Outcome 2: Children are

connected with and
contribute to their world
X Develop a sense of belonging
Respond to diversity with respect
Become aware of fairness
X Become socially responsible, respect
environment

Outcome 3: Children have

a strong sense of
wellbeing
X Strong in social & emotional
wellbeing
Take responsibility for own physical
health

Outcome 4: Children are

confident & involved
learners
Develop dispositions for learning
Develop a range of skills

Chelsea Rodda, Flinders University Student

Kindergarten 2015
leaves I already had on the board.

X Transfer and adapt knowledge across

contexts

Review:

Resource their own learning

We will find out which leaf there was the most

of by counting our tally, I wonder if you were
correct with your prediction?

Outcome 5: Children are

effective communicators
X Interact verbally and non-verbally with
others
Engage with a range of texts
Express ideas using a range of
media
X Begin to understand symbol systems &
patterns
Use ICT to investigate and represent
ideas

Learning Aims:

Children will be able to follow the tune of the song, learn the words and
sing along.
Children recognise that autumn leaves look different in colour and shape,
and sort them into groups.
They will predict which group/square of leaves has the most/least leaves.

Materials needed:

IPod dock/speakers
Autumn leaves & basket

basket

wool and tape

whiteboard, pens & magnets

Lyrics to the song (just on the
whiteboard so I can refer to
them if needed)
Material to cover the tally for the
first part

Pedagogical Strategies:

Use red material to cover my

pre-drawn tally on the
whiteboard, so we will have a
reveal and an element of
surprise (The leaves to show will
be on top of the material
attached with magnets so we
can still see them first.
Tuning In:
I will sing along with the song,
and model the actions; this
encourages children to join in.

Chelsea Rodda, Flinders University Student

Kindergarten 2015

Parent Involvement:

(optional)

Perhaps when parents come to pick

children up, a conversation starter is to
let them know weve been using
autumn leaves today, looking at the
difference in their shape and colour
this is something they might be able to
do in their backyards.

Do:
Watch the clock dont want to
be too long discussing the leaves
before starting the song and
sorting.
Before children choose a leaf,
make sure to explain that they
are very delicate, and we want
to hold them with great care, as
if it might break any minute. This
helps them to know that they
need to be gentle, and not to
break them up.

Reflection/Documentation:
This group time went pretty smoothly. All of the children were excited to be
involved.
Everyone liked being able to choose their own leaf - though this did take a while,
going around the circle with the basket of leaves, some children needed a hurry
up to choose their leaves next time I could either hand them a leaf, or before
handing them out, let them know they need to choose quickly, perhaps within
three seconds.
I think that the song here we play in the leaves didnt really add anything to it,
and would have been better off without it.
The strongest point was tallying the groups of leaves.
They said they havent done a lot of tallying so this is something I can build on.