This is my absolute favorite time of year! I am enchanted with all things autumn and leaves changing colors is at the top of my favorites list!
To celebrate autumn and dive deeper into the science behind it we read three books and completed hands-on activities to go along with them! We are diving in a weather and seasons unit for a couple weeks!
Our first book was We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt (think of the book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt but with leaves). The kids love The rhythm of this book and play on words. After we read it, we did jsut what the title says and went on a leaf hunt! We then made leaf rubbings and talked about what the leaf rubbings revealed (veins, spores, etc).
Next on my docket was Leaf Man. This is such a fun, imaginative book! They use leaves to form into shapes of animals and other objects. We then created our own leaf art. One child created ducks flying, another a unicorn, and another made a person out of leaves. seeing their unique twist on a project like this is too fun!
Last, but certainly not least: When the Leaf Blew In. This is one of my favorite books for preschool through second grade! It has a touch of silliness and is terrific for sequencing. We read it aloud and then used sequencing cards to retell the story (preschool through first graders helped with this). Then I gave the first graders a stack of cards with nouns and verbs from the story. We sorted them into the two categories. This book is perfect for introducing or reviewing nouns and verbs! Lastly, each child chose a leaf from our leaf hunt and we placed them in front a fan to see how far our leaves would blow. We did three trials and recorded the distance on a science investigation sheet (you can grab that sheet here).
We wrapped up our week using the microscope and learning why leaves changed colors (thanks to our Experience Curriculum for the assist with broken down and simplified information for the preschoolers). We looked at both dried leaves which had fallen from trees naturally and a freshly picked leaves.
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