Squirrels are such a fun theme to bring into fall learning, especially when acorns, leaves, and woodland animals start popping up everywhere. I created these free squirrel worksheets for preschool and kindergarten to give children a simple way to practice early literacy, handwriting, fine motor skills, and letter recognition while enjoying a cute seasonal theme.
This small printable set includes four squirrel activities that can easily fit into a fall unit, woodland animal study, Letter S week, homeschool lesson, or classroom learning center. The pages are simple enough to use independently while still giving children several different ways to practice important early learning skills.
Free Printable Squirrel Worksheets for Fall Learning
Squirrel activities are especially easy to work into fall lessons because they pair naturally with themes such as acorns, autumn leaves, forests, woodland animals, and changing seasons.
I also like that a squirrel theme doesn’t have to be limited to science. It can become a fun backdrop for practicing letters, handwriting, vocabulary, tracing, cutting, and other early learning skills.
That is exactly what I wanted to do with this printable set. Instead of giving children several worksheets that practice the same skill, I included a variety of activities that can be used together or spread throughout your squirrel or fall theme.
The free printable includes:
- S is for Squirrel handwriting practice
- Label the Squirrel cut-and-paste worksheet
- Squirrel line tracing activity
- Letter S hunt
Each activity focuses on a slightly different skill, so you can choose the pages that work best for your child or students.
What’s Included in These Free Squirrel Worksheets?
S Is for Squirrel Handwriting Worksheet
The first activity combines a Letter S worksheet with a squirrel theme.
Children can begin by coloring the uppercase and lowercase S and the squirrel holding its giant acorn. Then they can trace the word squirrel, uppercase S, lowercase s, and uppercase and lowercase letters together.
This gives children repeated practice forming the letter without making the entire page feel like traditional handwriting practice.
It can work especially well during a Letter S week, fall literacy center, morning work activity, or homeschool alphabet lesson.
You can also encourage children to say the /s/ sound as they work and think of a few other words that begin with S.
Label the Squirrel Cut-and-Paste Worksheet
The Label the Squirrel page introduces some simple squirrel vocabulary while adding cutting and gluing practice.
Children cut apart the five words at the bottom of the worksheet and paste them beside the correct parts of the squirrel:
- ears
- teeth
- paws
- tail
- body
This is a nice way to bring a little science and vocabulary into your squirrel activities without turning it into a complicated animal study.
Before completing the worksheet, look at the squirrel together and identify some of its most noticeable features. Children can point to the ears, teeth, paws, tail, and body before matching the labels.
For younger preschoolers who aren’t ready to cut out the labels independently, an adult can prepare the word pieces ahead of time.
Squirrel Line Tracing Worksheet
The squirrel tracing page might be my favorite of this little set because the squirrel itself becomes the tracing activity.
Children follow the dotted lines to complete the squirrel and its acorn. Once they have finished tracing, they can color their picture and trace the word squirrel at the bottom of the page.
Tracing activities can help young learners practice the controlled hand movements they will eventually use for handwriting. Squirrel-themed prewriting activities are also commonly used to practice pencil control and directional movement with preschool learners.
Try letting children trace the squirrel with their finger first. They can then go over the dotted lines with a pencil, crayon, or marker.
Find the Letter S Squirrel Worksheet
The final page is a Letter S hunt.
Children search through the circles surrounding the squirrel and dab or color every lowercase s they can find.
The page mixes the target letter with other lowercase letters, including a, d, o, q, v, w, z, n, b, and k. This means children aren’t simply repeating S. They have to visually distinguish it from the other letters on the page.
Dot markers would make this activity especially fun, but they aren’t necessary. Children can also use crayons to color the circles, cover each S with a small counter, or place a pom-pom over every correct letter.
Skills Children Can Practice with Squirrel Worksheets
Although there are only four activity pages, these squirrel worksheets for preschool and kindergarten provide opportunities to work on several early learning skills.
Children can practice letter recognition, Letter S formation, handwriting, vocabulary, visual discrimination, pencil control, cutting, gluing, and fine motor coordination.
Seasonal worksheets are most useful when they give children meaningful practice rather than simply changing the pictures around a traditional worksheet. Current fall preschool resources commonly combine seasonal themes with tracing, alphabet work, cutting, matching, and fine motor activities.
You certainly don’t need to complete all four pages at once. One worksheet paired with a book or hands-on activity can be plenty for a short preschool lesson.
Ways to Use These Squirrel Worksheets at Home or in the Classroom
These printables are flexible enough to work in several different settings.
For a classroom, add individual pages to fall literacy centers, morning tubs, early-finisher folders, fine motor centers, Letter S activities, or woodland animal units. The tracing and letter hunt pages are particularly easy to use as independent practice once children understand the directions.
For homeschool families, the worksheets can become the starting point for a mini squirrel study.
Read a squirrel picture book, complete one of the worksheets, and then head outside to see whether you can spot a real squirrel. Children might notice squirrels running between trees, searching for food, or carrying acorns.
If squirrels are active where you live, observation can lead naturally into questions such as:
What does a squirrel eat?
Where does it live?
What does its tail look like?
How does a squirrel move?
What is it doing with the food it finds?
A simple printable suddenly has a tiny nature study growing out of it.
Turn Your Squirrel Theme Into a Simple Nature Study
If you have a little more time, take your squirrel lesson outside.
Children can collect safe fall nature items such as leaves, pinecones, and twigs and bring them back for sorting, counting, comparing, or examining with a magnifying glass. Squirrel and fall preschool lessons often use outdoor observations and collected nature materials to extend learning into science, math, descriptive language, and patterns.
You could also have children draw a picture of a squirrel they observed or create a pretend squirrel habitat using sticks, leaves, and other natural materials.
That combination of a printable activity and hands-on exploration gives children several different ways to interact with the same theme.
Squirrel Books to Read with Your Worksheets
A picture book is an easy way to turn these free squirrel worksheets into a more complete fall lesson.
One especially good choice is The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri. The story follows a squirrel busily preparing for winter, making it a natural companion to a fall squirrel theme. The book is also used in early childhood literacy activities to encourage listening, discussion, recalling story details, drawing, and writing.
A few other squirrel-themed books to look for include:
- Those Darn Squirrels! by Adam Rubin
- Scaredy Squirrel by Mélanie Watt
- Squirrels Leap, Squirrels Sleep by April Pulley Sayre
- The Secret Life of Squirrels by Nancy Rose
- Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert
For younger children, I would choose one story and one worksheet rather than trying to turn every book into a lesson. The book can introduce the theme, and the printable gives children a short activity to reinforce what they’re learning.
This is also a natural place to add your Amazon affiliate links for any books you recommend.
Easy Paper Plate Squirrel Craft for Kids
After children finish their worksheets, you can add a paper plate squirrel craft for a hands-on fall activity.
Supplies
You will need:
- Paper plate
- Brown paint
- Brown construction paper
- Light brown or tan construction paper
- Black construction paper
- Scissors
- Glue
- Paintbrush
How to Make a Paper Plate Squirrel
Paint the paper plate brown and allow it to dry completely.
Use brown construction paper to create the squirrel’s ears and large fluffy tail. Cut smaller inner-ear pieces from light brown or tan paper.
Create eyes and a nose from black paper, or draw the facial features after the other pieces have been attached.
Glue the ears near the top of the paper plate and attach the tail behind one side so that it curves around the squirrel.
Add the eyes, nose, and other facial details to finish your squirrel.
Children can also cut out a large paper acorn and glue it near the bottom of their squirrel so it looks like their new woodland friend has been busy preparing for fall.
The cutting, painting, and assembling add another opportunity for fine motor practice while giving children a creative activity to pair with the worksheets.
More Fall Printables for Preschool and Kindergarten
Once you’ve finished your squirrel worksheets, you can continue your fall theme with more seasonal printables.
Try pairing them with my fall preschool worksheets, leaf activities, apple printables, pumpkin worksheets, scarecrow activities, or other woodland animal resources.
Using several related themes makes it easy to build a larger fall unit without requiring children to work on the same activity again and again.
For example, your week might include squirrel letter practice one day, a leaf activity the next, a fall book and craft another day, and a pumpkin counting activity later in the week.
The seasonal theme stays familiar while the learning skills continue to change.
Pin These Free Squirrel Worksheets for Later
Not ready to print your squirrel activities yet?
Save this post to your fall preschool activities, squirrel activities, woodland animals, Letter S activities, or free preschool printables Pinterest board so you can easily find the worksheets when you’re planning your next fall lesson.
These squirrel activities are especially handy to save for September, October, and November when fall themes begin filling homeschool and classroom lesson plans.
Get Your Free Squirrel Worksheets Here
Ready to add these cute squirrels to your fall learning?
I created these free printable squirrel worksheets for preschool and kindergarten to make it easy to add handwriting, fine motor practice, letter recognition, and squirrel vocabulary to your seasonal lessons.
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Print the pages you want, grab a few crayons, pencils, scissors, and glue, and your squirrel activity is ready to go.
Add These Squirrel Worksheets to Your Fall Learning
Squirrel themes are a fun bridge between seasonal learning and early academics. Children get the familiar fall imagery of squirrels and acorns while practicing skills they’ll continue using throughout preschool and kindergarten.
These free squirrel worksheets can stand alone for a quick fall activity or become part of a larger squirrel, woodland animal, Letter S, or autumn unit.
Between tracing a squirrel, learning its body parts, practicing the Letter S, searching for letters, reading a squirrel story, and creating a paper plate craft, there are plenty of ways to turn four simple worksheets into a full morning of fall learning.
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