Free Squirrels & Acorns Printables: 6 Fall Worksheets for K–1

These free Squirrels & Acorns printables pack six fall pages into one download: counting acorns, matching words, tracing, patterns, coloring, and a short writing prompt. Every page uses the same small set of words, nut, acorn, tail, oak, and tree, so the vocabulary builds instead of resetting.

The set is made for kindergarten and first grade, and preschoolers who love squirrels can join in for the counting and coloring pages.

Free for your family, co-op, or classroom. Prints on regular letter paper. Every page is checked for mistakes before we post it.

What's in the Squirrels & Acorns printables

1. Counting acorns

Five rows of the same brown acorn with a cap, six down to two per row in mixed order. Kids count each row and write the number in the box at the end.

Make it easier: Set out real or pretend acorns and move one aside for each acorn your child counts.
Make it harder: Ask which row has the fewest acorns, or how many acorns are in the last two rows together.

2. Word match

Left side: an acorn, oak leaf, oak tree, walnut, and squirrel tail, each with a dot. Right side shuffles those five words, one dot apiece, for your child to connect with a line.

Make it easier: Read the five words aloud together first, pointing to each matching picture.
Make it harder: Cover the pictures and have your child read each word alone before matching.

3. Tracing

The same five words again, nut, acorn, tail, oak, and tree, each next to its picture. Kids trace the dotted gray letters, then write the word on their own on the empty half of the line.

Make it easier: Trace with a finger first, then trace just the first letter with a pencil.
Make it harder: Write all five words from memory on scratch paper, then check them against the page.

4. Patterns: what comes next?

Four rows with a rule to find: acorn-leaf trading off, mostly leaves with one acorn, squirrels and acorns in a block, then acorn-leaf-squirrel repeating. Kids draw what comes next in the box.

Make it easier: Line up real or paper acorns and leaves to build the first row before drawing it.
Make it harder: Have your child name each pattern (AB, AAB, ABB, ABC) and make up a new one.

5. Coloring page

A squirrel on an oak branch holding an acorn, with more acorns and oak leaves nearby. It’s a calm Squirrels & Acorns coloring page with thick, simple lines that are easy for small hands.

Make it harder: Color the acorns two different shades of brown for a little extra detail work.

6. Draw and write

A big empty box for drawing a hiding spot for acorns, then the sentence starter “If I were a squirrel, I would hide my acorns…” The drawing gives your child an idea to put into words.

Make it easier: Your child tells you where, you write it lightly, and they trace over your writing.
Make it harder: Write two sentences: where they’d hide the acorns and why that spot is a good one.

What kids practice with these squirrel and acorn worksheets

• Counting and writing numbers up to six, one acorn at a time.
• Phonics. Acorn is a two-syllable word (a-corn); tail has the ai team for a long a; oak has the same oa team as “boat”; tree has the ee team plus the tr blend; nut is a short word with a short u.
• Handwriting. Tracing nut, acorn, tail, oak, and tree, then writing them without the dotted guide.
• Patterns, from a simple two-item repeat up to a pattern of three.

A simple 5-day squirrels and acorns plan

1. Monday: Go on an acorn hunt and bring a few home. Do the counting page.
2. Tuesday: Read the five words together, then do the word match page.
3. Wednesday: Do the tracing page and point out the ai in tail and the oa in oak.
4. Thursday: Sort your real acorns and leaves into the patterns from the page, then do the patterns page.
5. Friday: Color the squirrel, finish the draw-and-write page, and date it for your homeschool portfolio.

Using the set in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade

Preschool: Counting, coloring, and naming the pictures out loud, saying “acorn” or “squirrel” instead of writing it.

Kindergarten: All six pages fit as they are, from the acorn count to the oak-branch coloring page.

First grade: Add the harder options above, then ask for a second sentence explaining their hiding spot.

Why squirrels bury more acorns than they ever find again

All through fall, squirrels bury acorns one at a time across their territory, a habit called caching, so they have food once cold weather stops new nuts from growing. Squirrels forget or abandon a large share of what they bury; researchers have found they leave behind roughly three out of every four buried acorns. Those forgotten acorns aren’t wasted: some sprout into new oak trees, one of the main ways oak forests spread.

Squirrel and acorn books to read with this set

• Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert
• Scaredy Squirrel by Mélanie Watt
• Because of an Acorn by Lola M. Schaefer and Adam Schaefer

Printing this set, plus the answers

• Turn on “Fit to page” if your printer offers it, so the coloring page’s frame prints fully.
• Print the coloring page on cardstock so markers or paint don’t soak through, and slip the word match and patterns pages into page protectors for a dry-erase do-over.

Answers: Counting, top to bottom: 6, 2, 3, 5, 4. Patterns, top to bottom: leaf, acorn, acorn, squirrel.

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