Looking for fall themed read aloud books to share with your students or your own kiddos? Well you’ve come to the right place! Read on and check out my Literacy Live Instagram to dive deeper into my 7 Fall Favorite Mentor Texts!
These 7 are my favorite not just because of my pure enjoyment of them, but I know each of these books can help me hit multiple teaching points, be engaging and hands on, and provide the biggest impact to my students.
Below is the order I typically teach these books in throughout the fall season, but feel free to mix it up based on what makes sense for you and your classroom!
One Green Apple by Eve Bunting
First off, I have always loved Eve Bunting’s books, and this one is no different. LaNesha Tabb inspired me to love this book because of her “Not Your Average Apple” unit and getting out of our comfort zones to share more cultures with our students and make them more worldly.
The cover alone is a great springboard for discussion and to kickoff comprehension skills. This book gives a great parallel experience for most of our students to relate to going to an apple orchard but possibly the unfamiliar experience of being at a not just a new school but also in a new culture. This parallel helps them learn to show empathy and compassion to the main character, or a new student in their own school.
Use this book to help teach characterization, inferring character feelings, and comparing and contrasting.
Home in the Woods by Eliza Wheeler
The illustrations in this book are absolutely beautiful. The setting of this book is during The Great Depression, so if you do a unit on The Great Depression in your classroom, this is a great book to incorporate.
I use this book to continue making inferences of character feelings and to dive a little deeper into this skill. This book can also be used to practice the response to reading skill and connect to social studies lessons. Lastly, I like to focus on the Author’s Note in the back of the book as it provides great insight and detail to the history behind the book.
Fall Leaves by Loretta Holland
This is a nonfiction book that can be used to teach the different phases of fall by the changing colors of the leaves. The comprehension skill I use with this book is order of events by the 5 sentence sequencing the author uses. I also like to do nature walks with our students (and my own kids!) and let them collect different pieces of nature to write about. Other great teaching points this book hits on are art integration with hands on activities, vivid verbs, homophones, social studies/geography, and science.
Sweep by Louise Greig
Sweep can be used as an SEL book as it helps students learn how to overcome, accept, and share their emotions. It can also be used to discuss problem and solution and identifying words and phrases in the story that signal that. The author uses figurative language to describe feelings and emotions. I also use this book to teach visual thinking, comprehension, and perspective strategies.
The Scarecrow by Beth Ferry
The Scarecrow is a circle story that I use my Circle Story Organizer for students to follow along with as we read this story. As they use this organizer, it allows them to practice sequencing/reading comprehension and writing. This book also hits on character evolution and friendship theme. Lastly, this book is great to use for a phonics lesson (yes, you’re kiddos still need phonics lessons!). I use it for my students to work on the “-ow” sound.
Hello, Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher
I LOVE this book! I use it for a mentor text of descriptive writing because it is written very poetic with figurative language. It can also be used for a grammar lesson about adjectives. For reading comprehension, we look at text look back and cause and effect of how the harvest moon effects different things. Lastly, for a cross-curriculum lesson this book hits on different science lessons like phases of the moon, rotation of the earth and tides.
The Hundred-Year Barn by Patricia MacLachlan
I like to use this book to focus on our story elements. It has a great theme about community and working together with beautiful fall illustrations. We create our own story elements Hundred-Year Barn where my students identify the problem, solution. theme, main characters, and adjectives under different flaps. **You can get this activity for FREE at the end of this post!**
Pin the image below so you don't forget about these lessons each year!
Thank you for the book suggestions! I have three of the books you suggested and really love them! So, I knew your idea of literature and mine were on the same path! I like how you presented your photos and your suggested teaching ideas! Thank you for being a fresh voice for me!