Fall Leaves Fall! (Written by Zoe Hall; Illustrated by Shari Halpern)

Reviewed by Margo Dill, www.margodill.com, margodll@aol.com

Picture book for preK-K
Two young boys as main characters
Rating: A beautiful season deserves a beautiful, simple book.

Short, short, summary: If you teach preschool or kindergarten, this is a great book to use with your students. You can also use it at home if your child is this age and wants to know about autumn and the leaves changing colors. The text is simple–some children might be able to read it to you, and the pictures are beautiful, bright, and celebrate fall. Two brothers explain how they know fall is here, and what they like to do with the leaves falling from the trees. An illustration toward the end of the story shows some different types of leaves and the names of the trees they come from, such as ginkgo, beech, and oak. A wonderful preschool or Kindergarten activity is shown on the next page–making creatures and illustrations out of leaves. The last page of the book has a nice author’s note that explains what happens to the leaves in each season.

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Collect leaves, label them, and make leaf creatures and illustrations like the brothers do in the book. You can help your students with the labeling, or you can invite an older class and do a buddy activity where students work together to post, identify, and label leaf collections. You can either have students bring in leaves from their homes, or you can go on a class leaf collection walk. You can also have a contest to see if your students or child can find the leaves that are labeled in the book.

2. The cycle of a tree’s leaves is perfect for working on sequencing skills. Ask students to draw a picture of a tree in all four seasons, like you see in the back of the book. After students have drawn a tree in summer, fall, winter, and spring, ask them to cut them out. (If you have students draw their trees and leaves on a notecard, you won’t need to cut them out. This is up to you.) Once students have them cut apart, then they give them to a partner. The partner needs to glue them in sequential order, starting with summer, and then label each season.

3. Ask students to write about their own experiences with fall leaves. Depending on your students’ ability levels, students can draw (or write) about their fall leaf experiences, tell them to you and you can write them down, or work with an older buddy student to write and illustrate fall leaf experiences. Students can compare and contrast their stories to the brothers’ story in Fall Leaves Fall!

If you have used this story with your students or your child, please leave a comment here and tell us how it went!

If you have a suggestion of a book for me to read and review, please email me at margodll@aol.com or leave a comment here.

photo by ctd 2005 on www.flickr.com