Have a Festive Fall in Your Library

Cool, sweater weather. Crunching through crisp leaves. Biting into juicy apples. While most of us start back to school in steaming August or humid September, by the time October rolls around, we are ready for autumn. How do you have a festive fall in your library or classroom?

My go-to technique, is of course, to read books about fall. If time permits, I read a nonfiction book (maybe Why Leaves Change Color) and a fiction book (Leaf Man). Or How a Pumpkin Grows vs. the Pumpkin Fair. This lends itself to so many lessons, beyond the topic, such as photographs vs. illustrations, informational facts vs. an imaginative story. Even, where do we find these books (by author’s name vs. Dewey Decimal number). A great supplement to this idea is Scholastic’s subscription database, Book Flix. Check to see if your school subscribes. This database pairs a nonfiction book with a fiction book on a similar topic. Show it on your Smart Board, and it can read the books aloud to the class. Useful to support struggling readers (or if you just have a headache on the day before Halloween)! It includes several digital activities such as identifying vocabulary words found in the story

Responding to a Festive Fall Story

I often have an activity for the kids to do after the story, or while checking out books. This is especially important for students who forgot last week’s book and are not taking a book this week. You need to keep them busy! My principal has said over the years, “I see you are doing crafts in the library.” Now, no one loves crafts more than I do, but I would tell him, “they’re not crafts…they’re literary response projects.” After all, five-year olds can’t write a three-paragraph essay about a book they’ve read but they can color a picture or decorate a pumpkin cut-out.

Festive Fall Nature Walk

Going on a nature walk used to be a standard activity in Kindergarten. The kids could gather leaves and do leaf rubbings. If the leaves have not fallen yet where you live, or you teach in the concrete jungle, a good alternative is plastic rubbing plates. There are many types available. I have used these for fall leaf projects. They also have animal and fish plates, great for animal reports, studying the ocean, etc.

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Festive Fall on the Computer

Of course, for older kids, you might want to capture their interest with technology. I almost always put up a game on the Smart Board. They know to check out their book first, then line up between the tables and take their turn. There are so many interactive games in PowerPoint, or Google Slides, or BOOM Cards (those are digital task cards hosted on the BOOM Learning website). Here are some for fall:

Hope you find some ways to have a festive fall in your library!