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Autumn tuff tray ideas with nature

Blog
Georgia Fisher
13 Nov 2025

Celebrate Autumn with Natural Themed Tuff Trays

As autumn arrives, there’s no better time to bring the magic of nature into your early years setting. At YPO, we believe that the best learning starts with curious minds, and open-ended play. That’s why autumn is the perfect season to explore the wonders of natural materials in your tuff trays.
From crunchy leaves and rustic logs to smooth stones and dried orange slices, natural resources offer children a sensory-rich experience that sparks imagination, builds language, and encourages inclusive play. Whether you're setting up a mini forest floor or crafting a seasonal sensory hunt, these materials invite children to explore with their senses; touch, smell, see and hear, all while connecting with the world around them.
In this blog, we’ll share simple yet inspiring ways to use natural materials in your tuff trays this autumn, helping you create engaging setups that support EYFS goals and celebrate the season!

Foraging for materials

Young child foraging for autumn materials

Finding and collecting materials is all part of the fun. Take your students outside in grounds, or even a trip to the local park to collect natural materials; the local woodlands are always a goldmine for natural resources! By collecting these resources, you can utilise them across lots of activities, crafts and tuff trays. We've listed our favourite ideas below!

Autumnal Puzzle

Autumn Materials Puzzle Tuff Tray

Using the materials collected from your foraging hunt, simply draw around the most particular and unique items in a tuff tray. Children can then match up the correct items through problem solving, decision making and observation. To make this more advanced, you could include a timer so children can see who is the quickest at finishing the puzzle.

What you’ll need:

• Tuff tray (801659)
• Play Tray Paper Pad (306797)
• Broad Tip colouring Pens (75126X)
• Foraged natural materials

Natural Mark Making

Autumn Mark Making Tuff Tray

Using both foraged and bought materials, children can explore textures, shapes, sounds and colours of different materials. By adding your materials and some simple play sand to a tuff tray, children can explore their creativity and enjoy a sensory experience at the same time. We added Yellow Door rollers to add another element of interactivity to our tuff tray.

What you’ll need:

• Tuff Tray (801660)
• Play Sand (803022)
• Yellow Door Let’s Roll Garden Bugs (427313)
• Pinecones (305055)
• Acorns (308657)
• Natural Tea Branches (800160)
• Thika pods (308649)
• Other foraged materials

Autumn Fairies

Autumn Tuff Tray- Leaf Fairies

A simple outline of fairies and natural materials will keep children entertained as they decorate their fairies with leaves, dried flowers, acorns and more. This activity helps children explore their creativity as they design their own fairies, their hand-eye coordination as they place their natural materials, and their collaborative skills whilst understanding the world with natural materials.

What you’ll need:

• Tuff tray (801659)
• Play Tray Paper Pad (306797)
• Broad Tip Colouring Pens (75126X)
• Dried Coloured Leaves (427114)
• Dried Flowers (804308)

Minibeast Sensory Bin

Minibeast Sensory Bin

Encourage a sensory exploration withour favourite sensory bin of the season. This activity can be made up with items found in nature and some YPO classics. By adding your natural materials and minibeasts to a wide tray, tuff tray or sensory bin, children can explore the colours, textures and shapes of the materials whilst on the hunt for insects and bugs! For older children, we added the tickit magnifying glasses and tweezer tongs for an extra challenge to extract the minibeasts from their nest!

What you’ll need:

• Desktop Sand & Water Tray (810791)
• Dried Coloured Leaves (427114)
• Dried Flowers (804308)
• tickit Rainbow Magnifiers (427301)
• tickit Rainbow Tongs (450164)
• Pinecones (305055)
• Acorns (308657)
• Natural Tea Branches (800160)
• Thika pods (308649)
• Terra by Battat Mini Beasts (308641)

Head to our seasonal crafts hub for more products, blogs and seasonal crafts and activities!

Don’t forget to tag in your autumnal tuff trays, sensory bins and crafts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. If you’d like some more inspiration - head to our Pinterest page!

Find the above activities among several others in the latest issue of Little Learners. Don't forget to subscribe for free to receive all future issues and be entered into our exclusive subscriber competitions.

Georgia Fisher

Author

Georgia Fisher

Supplier Marketing Officer

YPO

[email protected]

Georgia is a Supplier Marketing Officer who helps deliver a wide range of multi-channel campaigns across both digital and traditional channels. Before stepping into this role, she worked as a marketing apprentice in YPO’s Early Years team, where she focused on researching and creating relevant and engaging content for blogs and social media, as well as supporting Early Years events and key campaigns.