Create your own fall retelling activity based on this simple book for kindergarten.
This is how I created a Fresh Fall Leaves retell activity to go in our retell center as a storytelling option for my kindergarten students.
Let me show you what’s in our set so you can make it happen in your classroom too.
It’s one of my favorite literacy centers and we usually introduce Fresh Fall Leaves in the late fall. In the midwest, this means in the November timeframe.
We use this story to teach that one way to write stories is to make the ending the same as the beginning. It's a simple technique but can really add elegance to a kinder's writing!
This is also a good connection book if you do FOSS trees, wood and paper science units.
They read they act, they use lots of great vocabulary and are developing fantastic reading habits all while continuing to build their love of reading.
My kinders get to choose the book(s) they want to retell while they are at this literacy center.
What’s in my retell set
Here are the props I gathered rather inexpensively (and you can too) to bring the book alive once we knew it by heart.
I purchased a set of fake leaves from the dollar store (they were on a garland like vine, but I just pulled them off) to make the props for it.
Very inexpensive!
How to make your own Fresh Fall Leaves activity
If you plan to make this a year-long literacy center, I highly recommend that you read the Retell Literacy Center Directions for more details and making everything run smooth.
Because you can make this kindergarten activity yourself and once you and your students are hooked on retelling you’ll want to make this a year-long thing.
Here are the materials you’ll need… (may include affiliate book links to Amazon)
Materials
- Leaves (fake)
- Fresh Fall Leaves Book by Betsy Franco
What to do
Take your book copy and your leaves and place them together. A container like an open basket, a book bin or a large Ziploc bag will work!
If you don’t want to buy leaves, you could easily make some from construction paper.
But all they need to do is have the book and the materials to tell as much as they can:
- about the story
- from the story
- with the story (following along)
Encourage kinders to use as many words from the text as they can remember. Since it's the beginning of the year, often times they will rely heavily on the pictures to retell this story.
Conclusion
There you have it – how to make a Fresh Fall Leaves retell activity for your class. I love that it doesn’t require much to get it done. {wink}
If you like this activity, check out this list of 20 more famous stories that are great for retelling in kindergarten. Most of them are just as simple to pull together and I’ve found all of the downloadable resources for you.
Other Books That Are Great for Retelling in Kindergarten
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