Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

One of my favorite fall stories is Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.  This imaginative story leads into so many fun activities for preschoolers!  The first day we read the story and spent some time exploring fresh and dried leaves.  We looked at the colors, shapes, and details of the leaves.  We listended to the dry leaves and imagined what pictures we could make with various leaves.
 It happened to be a beautiful fall day on Monday and the leaves covered the ground outside.  We took the children out and let them play in the leaves.  Before long they were working together to pile the leaves up so they could jump in them!  They had a ball playing in the leaves and finding other signs of fall!


1, 2, 3 Jump!




This little girl found a whole pocketfull of pine cones under a nearby tree!  She also noticed the sap coming out of the tree trunk and learned about it's sticky qualities as she explored!


One of our art activities this week is "leaf blowing".  I brought in a hair dryer and the kids helped me crumple up dried leaves.  We painted glue over a piece of paper and then dropped dried leaf pieces on top.  The best part was turning on the "wind" hair dryer and blowing the leaves all over the wet glue!  They loved being able to control the wind!



Where the Wind Blows...

As a part of our study of Fall and reading the story Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert we practiced different kinds of blowing.  On "Tickle Tuesdays" we practice various oral motor skills in our classroom.  Today we pretended to be the wind like in our story and we blew feathers, bubbles, and leaves. 


Blowing feathers up in the air to see how they float and what happend when the "wind" blows



 



We crawled around on the floor and blew the feathers as we went.  The kids had fun experimenting with different positions and exercising their large motor skills as they went along!



Developing Awareness

We have a friend in our morning class who is blind.  Our Consultant for children with visual impairments stopped by today to help us learn more about what it would be like to be blind.  The children volunteered to wear blindfolds and discover how their other senses were enhanced while their eyes were covered.  We played a few games with a noisy ball, mobility, and what it is like to "look" with your hands.  The children really enjoyed the activity!  They are such a caring and sensitive group!