Fall Foliage Tree

This fall foliage tree works on many skills and I love how it looks. I cut the tree shape out of a cider gallon so that the tree can easily stand up. These plastic jugs have thin plastic and are very easy to cut into. I made notches all over the tree and branches.

The notches face different directions so that the children need to do a bit of problem solving while fitting the ends of the "leaves" into them. I cut the leaves out of orange, green, yellow and red  detergent bottles , making one end a bit smaller to insert into the notches.

There is a bit of size discrimination required since they are various sizes and some of the larger leaves will not fit into the smaller notches. I suggest making an abundance of "leaves" to pick from. This allows the child to use visual matching skills and also trial and error to fit them into the notch openings and they can be creative in planning where to place the various colors.  I made some of the leaves a bit loose on purpose so that they fall out easily!

Now its time for pretend play!!!

Notice the different leaf arrangement after taking apart and putting back together. The last photo shows a side view.