September means Fall...Right?

I know...it is September 1st and it is technically not fall yet...but...can we pretend? I am thinking about all of the fall things. Pumpkin Spice Latte's, Fall Scented Candles, and all of the fun Fall School Activities! Hey, my son is thinking about Christmas...so it could be worse, right?

I wanted to share a few engaging activities that you can do during the fall months. I also wanted to share them a bit early so you could have time to prep them or buy the things you might need to make these activities happen!

The first activity I want to share is a Fall Poetry Booklet. My students have always loved doing these. While the idea is pretty simple, it takes us a few days to complete these. Really, I spend about a week on these.

We spend time discussing each type of poem that is included in these booklets (acrostic, haiku, cinquain, free verse, and humorous.) I know these are not all of the poetry types students need to learn but I only wanted to cover these for this lesson. There is a blank page though so you can add your own if needed. 

The students fill out the cover of the booklet, then begin working on their different types of poems. 

At this point, we have already started working our way through our Interactive Poetry Journal, so the students are familiar and have a good reference for the different types of poetry. 

I have also had a few requests for a booklet that would work for grades 1 and 2. I do not feel they are quite ready for types of poetry but I think they would love doing these Fall Word Booklets. 

Each page contains a different word for the students to describe. Then the students use a few of their descriptive words in a sentence. 

These booklets are fun, free and easy to prep! 

Next, I love doing this craft with my students each year. 

Fall Puzzle Hand Print Tree

Now, this is not my picture. I did not have any past pictures of mine that I have done, but I do mine a tad different than this picture (although this picture is ADORABLE.)

When we do ours, we use orange construction paper for the background paper. Then we trace our hands and part of our arms on brown construction paper (similar to this photo but they used felt.)

Then I order Old Mill in October (a puzzle from Amazon).



It is my favorite puzzle to use because the kids have no trouble finding great fall colors to use on their trees. Then have each student choose 20-30 pieces and they can glue them on their tree (as the leaves.)

Now, I always want to tie in writing to activities like these, so we write a Cinquain Poem on an index card describing their tree and attach it below the picture.

Finally, I want to share my FAVORITE book to read this time of year.

The Candy Corn Contest



The students LOVE this book! Let's be honest, it is my favorite time of day when we get to read it! It is a chapter book, but an easy read. I would say it takes us a week to read it. After we are done, I bring a jar of candy corn and have the kids guess how many are in the jar. The winner gets to take the jar of candy home (or share it with the class.) :) I use these Candy Corn Guess Slips to make my job a little easier!

And that's a wrap! I do many more fall activities but these are a few of my favorites!

I hope fall is kind to you and the weather is wonderful! I know I cannot wait to have that very first Pumpkin Spice Latte!

Happy Fall....errr...September. :)

Hillary

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