Preschool Story Time - Hooray for Fall!

Right up there with themes like Back to School and Apples, September is the perfect time to create a Fall story time!  Without further adieu, here is the plan!

It's Fall by Linda Glaser

This one again was on the long side for story time.  It was easy to cut out a page here and there to move it along. Its written in rhyme and the pictures are lovely, it was just a little long for story time.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

Last year I made these felts to accompany the book.  Last year I also knew the book by heart so I didn't need the book to perform it!  This year I was rusty so we read the book and then we each pretended to sneeze and 'build' the scarecrow on the flannel board.  My felting technique has changed a little -this was all done with sharpies.  Now I use 3D paints, but I do love the shading that marker can provide too.

George Flies South by Simon James

Poor George hasn't learned how to fly, but it's time to migrate!  Oh dear what will happen when a gust of wind whisks George's nest right out of the tree?  The kids loved this one last year and this year as well.  There was a collective 'ahhh' at the end.

After halftime, I did this poem/fingerplay with the kids to get them ready for our craft:  Thanks to Debby Hill at preschoocrafts101.blogspot.com!

5 Little Acorns
Five little acorns, lying on the ground.
The first one said "Oh my I'm getting round!"
The second one said "I think I'm getting fat!"
The third one said "I have a nice hat!"
The fourth one said "There's a squirrel over there."
The fifth one said "But I don't care!"
Down came the squirrel and swept them all away,
up to his nest for a cold winter's day.

And then we talked about squirrels and nuts and how busy squirrels are this time of year.  They loved telling me about the gatherers in their yard!  Back to the stories!

Fall is Not Easy - Marty Kelley

This book has been immortalized in felt by MANY of my fellow bloggers.  Because my library doesn't own a copy of this book, I decided to make my own felt set so I could recite the poem.  The kids and parents loved this book and all wanted to check out a copy!  I wish this was one I had multiple copies to share.    Shout out to Melissa at Mel's Desk since I most closely copied her felt set.  I added grass/snow/leaves for the seasons.

Nuts by Paula Gerritsen

Little mouse has to cross the farm to get to her favorite nut tree, but a storm is coming in!  Can she get to the tree and fill her pockets before the storm sweeps them all away?  Even though this was technically my fifth book, my kids were really into hearing one more story!  It's really a sweet book.

And here's my craft!  I used a clip art of an acorn, and added the poem to the page and circles to the acorn using Microsoft Word.  I cut out the cap and pasted three copies to another page so I could copy the caps on to brown paper.  The kids glued on the acorn paper caps, then added 5 real acorn caps I picked in my yard to the circles on the page (this kept them from using more than 5 acorn caps).  They also decorated their page however they wanted.  They were ready to tell the 5 little acorn poem at home!