Book Talk Tuesday - Leaf Man

Mrs. Jump's Class

Hi everyone! It's Tuesday so I'm linking up with Mrs. Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday.  Today I'm sharing one of my favorite fall books - luckily I have enough favorites to get me through every week of autumn - but today it's Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

All of Lois' books are amazing, her illustrating style is unique and it really speaks to children, and encourages their own creativity.  This book in particular contains illustrations that are made out of leaves.  This story opens up children's imaginations to all of the possible places that leaves can fly on the wind.  There are a number of activities that would go along with this perfectly, it could easily be a catalyst to an entire week of explorations.

After reading this book your class could explore the playground or neighborhood for different kinds of leaves, making sure to pay attention to different shapes and colors.  You could also begin a science project to follow leaves that are blowing in the wind, or attempt to blow leaves using a hair dryer.  Children could flatten and dry leaves that the class has collected, and then use these to create their own illustrations.  Of course they would have to write (or dictate) stories about their illustrations when the pictures are finished. You could ask your students to bring in leaves from home so that your class can compare the leaves they have in their own yards, and then you could use the internet to attempt to label the leaves.  This would be a great mini project!

Some of the other books by Lois Ehlert that I love are:
Eating the Alphabet
Planting a Rainbow
Snowballs

The Big Book version of Leaf Man will be available in October!