- Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julie Rawlison, this is one of my favorite Autumn books! A young fox is perplexed when his favorite tree's leaves start to turn brown. He becomes even more dismayed when they start to fall. He tries to reattach them to the tree, but alas it is hopeless. When the last leaf falls he takes it home with him for the night. Still worried about his tree he rushes out the the next morning to discover a beautiful surprise. Not only is the plot delightful, but the prose is colorful and the illustrations are enchanting.
- Vocabulary words to review
- tumbled - bouncy fall
- swishing - soft sweeping movement
- rustle - quick quiet sounds
- snuffled - nosy breathing
- crinkly - lots of wrinkles
- Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger, a yellow leaf is afraid to let go of his branch. Fall continues to happen around him but he remains to scared to let go until a leaf above him offers to make the journey with him.
- Fall is Not Easy by Mary Kelley, a tree explains it's dislike for fall and why he's unpleased with his changing leaves. While contemplating his plight he tries on a few (humorous) other looks. The illustration in this book are simple but the trees creative 'costumes' are sure to delight young listeners.
- Fall Mixed Up by Bob Raczka, my children adored this silly book. The pictures are bright and they'd giggled over all the mix-ups.
- We're Going on a Leaf Hunt, by Steve Metzger. A play off of the song, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt', this book has a nice rhythm and it is a fun why to introduce children to the different types of leaves/trees.
- Encyclopedia of North American Animals, we used this book to read up a little bit more about the animals mentioned in Fletcher and the Falling Leaves.
Other Complementary Materials
- Science American, 'Why Do Autumn Leaves Change Color'. This is a short video, 3 minutes, that uses simple terms to explain this phenomenon.
- Upper case and lower case leaf match up. I've made this pdf available, for free, here.
- Leaf Memory Game. These nomenclature cards are a free printable from Imagine Our Life. To make the memory game you will need to print out two copies and cover the backs with a card-stock or construction paper.
- Leaf hunt, we used the same nomenclature cards from Imagine Our Life as a field guide.
- Measuring leaves, when we returned from of leaf hunt used a ruler to measure our leaves.
- Leaf Rubbings, we also used our leaves to make crayon rubbings. I've discovered that pressing the leaves to con-tact paper (vein side up) makes it much easer for young children to do rubbings. I use copy paper and have never had any problem with it sticking too much/being to hard to peel off of the contact paper. We used the same 'leaf contact paper' for multiple rubbings.
- My kids have been really in to puppets lately so we decided to make a paper bag Fletcter puppet.
Supplies: 2 lunch sacks per child, scissors, glue, crayons, stuffing/cotton balls, and googly eyes.
Step 1: cut a large triangle from the top backside of one lunch sack.
Step 2: cut two small triangles from sides of the same lunch sack.
Step 3: grumbled remainder of lunch sack into a tube shape
Step 4: glue the long triangle to bottom of the other lunch sack as a nose,
glue the small triangles on the top back of the lunch sack as ears,
and glue the grumbled bag to the bottom back of the sack as a tail
Step: 5: add desired details: googly eyes, stuffing, color, etc.
And that's it for our Fletcher and The Falling Leaves week. Do you have any must read Autumn picture books? I'd love to hear about them!
Please check our homeschooling page for more children's literature and unit ideas.