Are you a member of the amazing Weekly Virtual Book Club community on Facebook? It is free and fantastic weekly fun. Together a team of co-hosts (including yours truly) share a favorite children’s book and related activities each week. Join our community of over 6,000 creative parents, teachers, and childcare providers! The fifth and final day of our close read, we read another text to compare Fletcher and the Falling Leaves to. We paired the book Leaves by David Ezra Stein. Which tells the story of another forest animal witnessing the changes of autumn for the first time. We pair and share how the books are the same and different before completing the a fall craft together. Do not worry about the leaves being Fall colors or perfectly cut out. Neither is the point. However, you could notice some Fall colors as you observe. For instance, “That red you’re using on your leaf reminds me of the deep Red leaf I had during our story time” or “That orange leaf you’re making looks a lot like Fletcher’s leaf in the story.”

Alliterative and evocative, the rich, well-crafted language stirs the senses...This high-quality selection will serve as a seasonal feast for the senses and provide inspiration for budding young artists and writers who love nature." - School Library Journal Starred Review (Fletcher's Seasons Story Collection) But I do like that the book focuses on a very emotional character who cares deeply about his favorite tree, it makes for such a poetic way to carry the story.Have students identify things that happen in the story – discuss the cause & effect of each event. Fletcher worried about the tree because its leaves were turning brown. The leaves were falling off because it was autumn. Fletcher tried to “fix” the tree because the leaves fell off. Squirrel took leaves to make a nest. Porcupine took leaves so he could stay warm. Fletcher made a bed for the last leaf because he wanted to protect it. The tree was covered in icicles because it was winter. Conversion Table Of Code And Title Changes Third To Fourth Edition Dictionary Of Occupational Titles The fourth day of our close read, we focus on the fall leaves in the text. I explain that we will only be reading the parts of the story that involve the leaves. I ask the learners to make an inference about the leaves in the autumn by thinking about what the author is writing and what they already know about autumn. After reading we create a list of inferences they were able to make about the leaves. Then, we complete the “Falling Leaves” printable in groups and the learners illustrate and write about the inferences we made. Fall leaves in bright shades of orange, yellow, and red transforming our trees mark the change in seasons. Long before children can read a calendar or understand the mystifying concept of daylight savings time, kids notice the changing leaves.

Depending on what you gathered, be prepared to sort by size, shape or some other category. It is helpful to make some visual cue indicating the categories. For example, if you are sorting by size. Have an outline of a really big leaf and a really little leaf with the words BIG and SMALL printed out will aid the sorting process. Introduce the sorting categories and show the example visuals. Next, use your leaf as an example. You could say, “My leaf is tiny. It fits inside my hand and looks like a baby leaf. I am going to put it in the SMALL pile”The picture book was introducing a lot of themes here from the melancholy of Fletcher's feelings to the grief of his favorite tree changing to only being able to hold onto just a few leaves, seeing animals take the falling leaves leaving him with a sense of worry and much more...but of course being an older reader, it felt like these really impactful themes just weren't explored too much in the sparse text.

One of my favorite books to read during the fall is Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson. I adore the main character and how he interacts with the changes that happen in his forest during the fall. My learners are able to see fall from a different perspective and become enlightened on why the changes during autumn are so important for the animals. What happens to the leaves on a tree when autumn and winter comes around the corner? Well, that is what we are about to find out! “Fletcher and the Falling Leaves” is a children’s book by Julia Rawlinson along with illustrations by Tiphanie Beek and it is about a young fox named Fletcher who tries to save a tree’s leaves from falling off during autumn and winter. “Fletcher and the Falling Leaves” is a cute story about the beauty of changes in weather that I am sure that many children who are interested in knowing what happens to the trees during winter and autumn will easily enjoy for many years!Based on the song “Going on a Bear Hunt” this Fall twist on a classic makes for a fun read aloud. Filled with Fall colors and repetitive language the illustrations and words will draw in young readers for a playful romp in the woods and leave them eager to go on their own leaf hunt. Originally published in Britain as Ferdie and the Falling Leaves (and subsequently published by Scholastic, for the American school-market, as The Fox and the Falling Leaves), this delightful autumn picture-book follows the story of a young fox, and his somewhat less-than-graceful adjustment to the changing of the seasons. Deeply attached to his favorite tree, Fletcher was terribly worried, as autumn proceeded, to notice it losing leaves. Determined to do something about it, he soon discovered that it was impossible, either to prevent the tree from shedding its leaves, or to reattach them, once they had fallen. Would Fletcher's tree ever be the same? The first day of our reading, we focus on determining the main idea of the text. I set the purpose of reading before I begin and we make predictions based on the title and cover of the book. Then, I read the book straight through and let the learners enjoy it. After reading, the learners pair and share what they believe the main idea of the text is. Then we discuss as a group what the text was mostly about to determine if we all came to the same conclusion. Once all of the fall leaves are sorted you might want to work together to count and see while category has the most and which has the least. For example, “let’s count together and see how many BIG leaves we have.”