Fall Kindergarten Theme
Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but Fall is my favorite season of all time. School begins, leaves change color, the air is cooler and eggnog can be found at a few stores! I love to celebrate Fall with my students and make a celebration out of it. We of course celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day but I like to focus specifically on Fall itself. What does it mean to change seasons and so forth?
There are a number of excellent books out there you can read to your students to help them learn about the season. Lois Ehlert has two of my favorite books for Fall. Leaf Man and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf. And you can’t go wrong with Lucille Colandro’s book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves.
I like to track the weather and temperature in my class so we can compare the changes from day to day. The last few years, however, have been a challenge as the weather has usually been hot and dry. This year, however, we were able to track the seasonal weather change as the weather did turn cooler! I began our unit about Fall by using these charts to discuss what they noticed about our temperature from day to day. Then we discussed how the clothes we wear to school have started to change as well. I love some of the thoughts that they share. Particularly when school got blamed!
We immerse ourselves in learning activities that are fall related and I love for my learning stations to incorporate what we are learning about. Our foundational skills are about Fall, our writing is about Fall, and my centers are about Fall. Using “It’s Autumn Time” from Kindergarten Kiosk helps me reach my academic goals as well as my “learning is fun” goals.
We have been working really hard on 1:1 correspondence in class this year for math. Touching each object, giving it a name and recognizing that the last number named is how many objects there are. We’ve also discussed what to do if you can’t physically move an object to count it. One of those strategies was to color a dot on the object if it was on the paper. That way we can be sure to count everything one time. Inside the amazing Autumn packet, there is a wonderful activity that asks students to use this skill by counting the leaves and writing how many there are. Students colored the leaves to help them keep track of the leaves they counted. I appreciate that through this activity, they are not only working on math skills, but developing fine motor activities as well by coloring. I love activities that do double duty!
Graphing is also an excellent activity for students to complete because of the number of skills that go hand in hand with that. When we graph, we ask the students to analyze, compare and contrast objects and then sort them into categories. It sounds so simple, but we’re really asking them to use higher level thinking skills! I love Leaf Graph in this thematic unit because it incorporates these skills in addition to counting. Once again, incorporating a number of skills kindergarten kids need to practice. This year I printed the cards and placed them in plastic bags for the kids to sort and classify. I asked them to place the leaves on the graph first so they could visually see what they had. They needed to complete the task and then color in a box that matched the number of leaves they had in that group. I think next year, I want to have a little more fun and put them in a sensory table with a small basket. Then students use the basket to scoop out their leaves and use those to sort.
The discussion we had afterwards was really valuable and provided me with a lot of information not only about what students understood about graphing but terms such as more, less and equal as well.
Parent volunteers are always the best. I couldn’t accomplish what I do without their support. I love having parents come into the classroom to play games with the kids. Learning through play is always the best way! “It’s Autumn Time” has SO many activities that I can easily print off for parents to play with my students. The preparation is simple and I don’t have to spend a lot of time re-inventing the wheel. Each activity is well designed to enhance the learning process and matches the curriculum I need to teach for my students to be prepared for first grade. My parents love to use these games to work with students because they are incredibly easy to follow and the kids have so much fun playing them. They’re also really easy to switch up so I can differentiate instruction. This game is an alphabet recognition game where students are working on the names of uppercase and lowercase letters. I have several students who can name the letters, but not produce the sounds for the letters, so I can easily change the goal based on the needs of my students, but not have to come up with a separate activity. This saves me hours of time.
I couldn’t be happier with this unit along with any of the other thematic units that Kindergarten Kiosk has to offer. You won’t be disappointed! The learning is academic, fun, and of course thematic!
