Fall Unit

Here in Central Alberta, the brilliant colours of fall start to show up around the end of September. I like to start my Fall Unit as soon as the leaves start to change, so I can take advantage of the great colours. The wonderful leaves, the crisp air, and the smell in the air... what a great season!

Centers

Writing:
1. Leaf Books: I put together booklets in the shape of a leaf. Each page has the words I am a _____ leaf, and I write in a colour word in the blank. This early in the year I write the word in the colour it represents, during my next unit the words are all written in black. They have to find the colour on colour cards then.

Water:
1. Colour Mixing: they have 3 small glasses with red, yellow, and blue, each with an eyedropper. They use a seperate glass, filled halfway with water, to mix colours. I put up a colour chart on the wall, and they really enjoy trying to make secondary colours.
2. Making Coloured Playdough: I make each student a baggie full of plain playdough. They need to plan what colour they want it to be, and how many drops of which colour of food colouring they think will make that colour. Playdough recipe

Math:
1. Leaf Stamps: a large piece of paper with 8 large square. The numbers 1-8 are written in each square. The students stamp the correct number of leaves into each square to match the written number.

Science:
1. Flying Umbrellas:

Art:
1. Leaf Splatter Painting: the traditional toothbrush splatter painting.
2. Leaf Spirals: a spiral shape cut out of construction paper. The students cut out the spiral shape, then glue on construction paper leaves of real leaves. They hang from the ceiling and look like falling leaves. This is also a great time to evaluate their fine motor cutting skills.
3. Leaf Tree Hands: trace the student's hand and uppper arm onto a piece of paper. They colour it like a tree trunk. Then they glue leaves onto the finger branches. This makes a great textured project.

House:
I cover a whole bunch of leaves (before they get too dry and crumbly) with contact paper. These go into the house center with a small rake. The students can rake leaves, the dolls can 'jump' into the leaf pile. They love exploring these leaves, without the mess!

Activities

1. Go for a class walk to collect leaves. Make class story about our walk.

2. Starburst painting: drop food colouring into corn syrup, it makes awesome starbursts.

3. Colour recoginition games (if you have red feet, ect).

4. Leaf dancing: attach leaves (the contact paper leaves form the house center are perfect) to ribbons - red, yellow, blue, and white. Attach a ribbon to each arm and leg (4 each). Play hookie pookie with the ribbons to start. Then the students dance to music with different rhythms (I used latin music). How does each song make your body want to move? Fast? Slow? Watch how your ribbons flow to each dance.

5. Tie dye leaves: cut paper towel into leaf shapes. Fold the leaves unevenly, then dip the corners into colouring.

6. We read the poem "Fall is..." by Dianne Waggoner,

Fall is leaves that fall to thr ground.
Fall is pumpkins all around.
Fall is a chillines in the air.
Fall is coats and sweaters to wear.
Fall is for Halloween coming soon.
Fall is for the huge harvest moon.
Fall is gradually shorter days.
Fall is a squirrell gathering nuts as he plays.
Fall is a lot of things for you and me.
Fall is a beautiful season to see.
The students come up with their own sentences for the sentence frame "Fall is...". We write these onto individual pages, and they illustrate their own page. I then bind these into a class book, and the students can take turns taking it home.

7. THANKSGIVING (up here in Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving in the beginning of October)! We read the class poem "Thanksgiving" by Ivy O. Eastwick:

Thank You
for all my hands con hold-
apples red,
and melons gold,
yellow corn
both ripe and sweet,
peas and beans
so good to eat!

Thank You
for all my eyes can see-
lovely sunlight,
field and tree,
white cloud-boats
in sea-deep sky,
soaring bird
and butterfly.

Thank You
for all my ears con hear-
birds' song echoing
far and near,
songs of little
stream, big sea,
cricket, bullfrog,
duck and bee!

After we read this over a few times (the students help me add picture cues to the sentences), we talk about what we are thankful for. I try to emphasize family, friends, things we see, hear (like the poem) instead of material objects. The neatest comment one student gave was "the things I hear with my ears." When I asked like what things he closed his eyes, listened carefully, smiled, and said "just like that!". Boy, teachers sure ask silly questions!

After the students have come up with many examples of things they are thankful for, we make Thankful Turkeys. Trace the student's foot on brown construction paper, add eyes and a waddle. I write "Amy is Thankful For..." on the body. Trace their hands on coloured construction paper, the wrists glue behind the brown body, and the fingers become colourful feathers. On the fingers I scribe the things they are thankful for. Yes, the turkeys end up pretty unique, but the kids love them!

Journal Topics

  • What they saw on their fall walk.
  • Their favorite thing about fall.
  • I am Thankful for...

    Letters

  • L for leaf
  • F for Fall

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