Favorite Fall and Halloween Lessons Using Picture Books (Preschool-6th Grade)

As of yesterday it is officially Fall!  Yay! Have you made this Spiced Pumpkin Cake or Caramel Apple Chex Mix?  If not you need to; they are both absolutely delicious!

Today, I wanted to give you some of my favorite Fall and Halloween lessons that all use fantastic picture books aka quality literature to accompany them. Plus, there is the huge helpful and useful bonus that these lessons are already planned.

These lessons are perfect for Preschool, Kindergarten, or even 1st Grade, and the Summary lesson plan is great for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th grade.  Basically, there's basically something for everyone. 

I will happily send you the Smart Notebook file if you so desire.  

Which of these free lessons will you be able to use?   

This is one of my favorite Fall literature books; the pictures are absolutely gorgeous. Get the free lesson here. 

This SmartNotebook file is fantastic.  I loved teaching this lesson, and the kids LOVED participating.  Get the free lesson here. 

Another one of my absolute favorite library lessons to teach, but it will work just as perfectly in the classroom. Get the free lesson here. 

This story may scare the younger grades, but it is perfectly frightening and fun for 3rd grade and up. Get the free lesson and story map here. 

I love, and miss, teaching in the library.  I especially loved using my SmartBoard; I used it for almost every single lesson.  You might as well benefit with these lessons; I promise you'll love them too. 

Happy Fall and Halloween teaching!  

The Best Preschool Holiday Read Alouds

I have a friend who requested I make a Preschool Holiday Read Aloud Book List for a friend of hers.  I love special requests! 

Today, all your preschool teachers or librarians that do read alouds to the young kids this holiday read aloud list is for you.  

After creating the list I have already decided a Preschool/Kindergarten book list for Read Alouds for the different seasons. 

I'd say every single one of these books would most definitely work for Kindergarten as well as a parent of toddlers looking for great books to read their child. 

Anymore special book list requests?  Send them my way!

The Best Preschool Holiday Read Alouds

Groundhog’s Day

    

Ten Grouchy Groundhogs by Kathryn Heling 

This book is not an official Groundhog's Day book, but it is a fun groundhogs book.

Who Will See Their Shadows This Year? By Jerry Pallotta 

A perfect book to read on the official Groundhog's Day, but it is also just a fun book in general. 

Valentine’s Day

Never Too Little To Love by Jeanne Willis

Great book for teaching sequences as well as a cute concept. 

Hug Machine by Scott Campbell

This is a simple and fun read aloud that is great at Valentine's Day as well as many other times. 

Love, Ruby Valentine  by Laurie Friedman

This book looks a bit girly, but it is all around a great V-day book for both boys and girls. 

St. Patrick’s Day

Leprechaun on the Loose by Marcia Thornton Jones 

I love reading this book as a segue into a St. Patrick's Day hunt/lesson.  Such a fun book. Get the lesson here. 

The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day by Natasha Wing

Wing has a lot of "Night Before" books, but this one may be one of my favorite. 

The Luckiest St. Patrick’s Day Ever by Teddy Slater

A great St. Patrick's day book full of fun and leprechauns.

Easter

Carrot Soup by John Segal 

No necessarily Easter, but a fun carrot and bunny book. 

The Perfect Nest by Catherine Friend

Again, not an official Easter book, but a great read aloud (especially when you read it with accents) about eggs. 

The Easter Egg Farm by Mary Jane Auch

Most definitely an Easter book all centered around colorful eggs.  Such a fun book for many ages. 

Halloween

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams

Toddlers, preschoolers, kindergartners, and older kids love this story.  It's a fun one to read aloud, and a great one for sequencing. 

I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll

Not an official Halloween book, but it is a fun monsters' book. 

Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman

A perfect Halloween book  with all of your typical Halloween characters (witch, vampire, mummy, bat).  Such a fun read aloud with great repetition. 

Five Little Pumpkins by Dan Yaccarino

A great pumpkins/jack-o-lantern counting book which leaves plenty of room for audience participation.  

Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis

Again, not an official Halloween book, but it does involve pumpkins, and jack-o-lantern, and Halloween is definitely mentioned.  We read this book year round. 

Thanksgiving

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano

This book is perfect for preschoolers with lovable characters, a farm, laughter, and pizza. We love this book!

10 Fat Turkeys by Tony Johnston

I love this counting book it has great rhyming and all around fun to read.  Plus, one of my favorite words ever (Foof) is in this book.  This was the first book I ever saw with this word in print even though I had been saying it for 10+ years. 

One is a Feast for Mouse by Judy Cox 

A fun story about gratitude and not just turkeys; which really is important and the reason for this season.

Christmas

There are so many Christmas books out there.  Check my Christmas Book List for more. 

Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson

This book is the perfect length and the perfect storyline for preschoolers.  All around perfect read aloud in my book.

Snowmen at Christmas by Carol Buehner

This is one of my favorite Snowmen by Buehner books.  The rhythm, text, and storyline are all around fun and enchanting. 

         

Hanukkah

Hanukkah Haiku by Harriet Ziefert

I love the Haiku format; it keeps it simple for the young kids, but enjoyable the teachers reading. 

Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen

A simple and enjoyable book about lighting the menorah. 

Happy Preschool Holiday Read Aloud reading!  

Free 2nd-6th Grade Summary Lesson Using a Graphic Organizer/Story Map and Book

I just wanted to give y'all another free lesson using a picture book, and since it is Halloween time I used a fabulous Halloween-ish picture book.  

This Summary Lesson is geared towards third (3rd) graders, but can be easily adapted to 2nd, 4th, 5th, or 6th grades.  I know that almost every grade has some sort of curriculum objective geared towards telling and writing summaries using a variety of text.

Therefore, classroom teachers and school librarians... this is a great and easy lesson for you! 

The lesson is all about using a graphic organizer to help retell and write a summary.  I love graphic organizers b/c they benefit many different learning types and they help with comprehension.

A child with a comprehension learning disability could greatly benefit from visual graphic organizers such as this one.. 

All you need for this lesson is a great book, or text of any kind, and this Story Map pdf.  How fabulous is that?  

To save or print out the lesson click here. 
To save or print out the Story Map pdf click here.

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 3^rd Grade-Summary lesson using a Story Map/Graphic Organizer

Written by/Copyright: Alohamora Open a Book http://alohamoraopenabook.blogspot.com/

Objective/What Taught:

Writing- Write summaries that include important characters, setting, events, and details.

Reading- Use a variety of before, during, and after reading strategies and processes to sustain comprehension through increasingly difficult texts in a range of genres:

Summarize Text passages-

Respond orally and in writing to fiction and non-fiction reading:

·                   Identify key words and phrases.

·                   Use details to construct a summary.

·       Refer back to the text to provide evidence for their thinking.

·       Include characters, events, and some details from the beginning, middle, and end of a story.

·       Identify the setting (where and when), plot, main characters, problem, and solution in a narrative text.

Materials Needed:

- SmartBoard (Can use the pdf on a Doc Camera as well, or just draw the Story Map on the board)

- Graphic Organizer pdf

            - Book: Tell Me a Scary Story… But Not TOO Scary! by Carl Reiner

Procedure/How Taught:

1. I want to tell someone about the story I just read but I don’t have a lot of time.  I can’t tell them everything, so what should I tell them?  SUMMARIZE the story.  Tell a shortened version of the story

2. But… How do I summarize?  What do I do?  Give bad example of summarizing. 

a.    Is this a very good summary of the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears- a child broke a chair.

1.    NO- it doesn’t tell us if it’s a girl or boy, or whose chair is broken, or where this chair was that it was broken.  It doesn’t really tell us very much of anything.

3. A GOOD Summary includes the most important things but it’s still a shortened version of the book. 
1. Then what are the important things that I should include when I SUMMARIZE a story?

                                          i.    Main Characters

                                        ii.    Setting- where the story takes place

                                       iii.    Events that happen in the Beginning, Middle, and End

4. We are going to read/listen to the author read the story: Tell Me a Scary Story… But Not TOO Scary by Carl Reiner. (A lot of the books have a CD with the author reading the story which is fun, but you can also just read the story aloud) 

5. Show the Story Map on the SmartBoard/Doc Camera/Board

6. During the story, I want you to be ready to help me with these 5 boxes so we can summarize the story when we are done.

1. Review what each of the boxes in the Story Map means.

7. Read/Listen to the story. 

8. Complete graphic organizer of characters, setting and what happened in the beginning, middle, and end.

9. Use the story map to verbally give a summary of the book to the students.

10. Using a graphic organizer like this Story Map can help us review the book and give a good summary of the story. 

1. Do you think we can do a Story Map for longer chapter books?
2. Can we do a Story Map for Non-Fiction books?
3. Can we do a Story Map for anything we read? YES!

11. Practice/review how we can verbally give a summary of the story using the Graphic Organizer.

How Assessed: Students will be able to complete a Story Map Graphic Organizer together as class and then give a good summary of the story using the Story Map.

Extension/Assignment: Have the students read a story on their own or listen to one you read.  Then have them complete the Story Map independently. 

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Happy Summary Lesson using a Halloween book teaching! 

MeganRuth

Free Kindergarten Halloween Lesson Plan- Sequencing/Order of Events Using a Book

On Wednesday, I shared with y'all the 17 Must Read Halloween Picture Books.  Seriously, go check-out/request from the library every single one of those books.  They are so very fun!

One of those books, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams  is an absolutely fabulous book, and one of my very favorite to teach a library or classroom lesson on the subject of sequencing/order of events.  

I LOVED teaching this lesson to my Kindergartners, but you can adapt and teach this lesson to older grades as well as younger grades.  

My toddler and preschooler adore this fun book, and all kids love to do the actions (stomp, wiggle, shake, clap, nod, BOO) with me.  Even my Kindergartners got into the actions and repeated the items.  Plus, doing the actions really helps the children learn and remember for the multiple learning styles.   

I also have an awesome SmartBoard Notebook file that goes along perfectly with this lesson, and it even reviews the order of "How to Grow a Pumpkin/Jack-O-Lantern" lesson that I gave y'all last week.  Just email me (meganruth{at}gmail{dot}com) if you want the Notebook file.  I'd be happy to send it to you.

For easy printing of the lesson plan click here.   

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Halloween Sequence of Events Kindergarten Lesson Plan

Written by/©: Alohamora Open a Book http://www.alohamoraopenabook.blogspot.com/

Objective: The students will be able to listen to a story and recall the sequence of events

 1.3a  Identify cause and effect relationships in a sequence of events.

Materials:       -Book, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams

                        -SmartBoard and Notebook File (Email meganruth{at}gmail{dot}com for the file)

How Taught/Procedure:

1-      Last week we learned about how to grow a pumpkin.  We learned how and in what order a pumpkin grows.

2-      There is a certain order/sequence of how to grow a pumpkin

3-      Use the SmartBoard Notebook page of the pumpkin and how it grows.

a.       1^st-seed, 2^nd- plant, 3^rd- flower, 4^th-small pumpkin, and 5^th- big pumpkin

4-      Today we are going to read “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” by Linda Williams

5-      After we read the story I am going to ask you to help me put the objects the little old lady meets in the order or the sequence she meets them.

6-      What can you do to make sure you can really listen to the story?

a.      Review where eyes need to be, what the mouth looks like, what the hands and body looks like.

7-      Read Aloud- The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Williams

a.      Looking at the cover- Can you made a prediction/guess what the story is going to be about?

8-      Complete the Sequence of objects the little old lady meets.

a.       1^st- two shoes going clomp, clomp

b.      2^nd- one pair of pants go wiggle, wiggle

c.       3^rd- one shirt going shake, shake

d.      4h- two gloves go clap, clap

e.       5^th- one hat go nod, nod

f.       6^th- one scary pumpkin head go boo, boo.

9-      The little old lady met the 6 objects in the order of… (repeat the 6 in order)

10-  Remembering the order of events in a story, or the order the little old lady met the objects, helps us remember the story better.  Good readers try and remember the sequence of events.

11-  Student check-out

a.       Review how to look at a book on the shelf

b.      Review how to carry the book, where to check it out from so you can borrow it and where to sit to look at the book after

How Assessed: The student completion of the ordering of the objects met/sequence of events.

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Happy Teaching Sequence/Order of Events using a Halloween Book!

MeganRuth