It cooled off! This Monday morning feels like fall. Today, in celebration of the coming of the new season, I have two great fall picture books to share with some ideas on how to incorporate them in to learning. Learn about the apple tree life cycle and also sort the sillies out of the season!

Apple Life Cycle Learning

First, we have a book about apples. We’re eagerly awaiting our own field trip to the apple orchard in just a few weeks, so I love this book for getting us ready.

The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson , illustrated by Jonathan Beam, Simon and Schuster, 2007, follows “The House that Jack Built” style of story-telling. Step by step, we learn about the tree, the roots, the rain and the sun that went in to the pie that papa baked for a little girl. I love the old-fashioned three-color illustrations, and the message that nature has an important role in the apple pie “recipe” is a perfect fall reminder.

This book could fit perfectly in our learning as we prepare for an apple orchard visit. Here are some great questions to ask:

• From where do we get the food we eat?
• What is necessary for an apple tree to grow?
• It also prompts a perfect Home Ec lesson: Let’s make a pie!

I think it is a great idea for learning about the seasonal changing of an apple tree. What is the cycle of an apple tree? Check out my VIP Resource Library for an apple tree life cycle spinner!

Fall Seasonal Celebration

As for fall in general, my absolute favorite fall book is Fall Mixed Up by Bob Raczka, illustrated by Chad Cameron, Carolrhoda Books 2012. This book features traditional fall scenes with everything wrong: leaves falling up, squirrels flying South, kids jumping in piles of sticks. With a gentle rhyme throughout to describe the mixed up world, Fall Mixed Up provides plenty of opportunity for laughs, but also ample chance to talk about what really happens in fall!

Here are some good questions to ask the kids as we study the book, after we’re done laughing.

• Why do leaves fall in the autumn?
• What do the animals really do in the fall?
• What mistakes do you notice about the apples and pumpkins?
• What is your favorite thing to do in the fall?
• How are the holidays depicted here? What is wrong with it?

Reading picture books can be fun and educational, and these great books will give the kids a chance to enjoy fall and laugh at it all while thinking critically of what they are reading.

More Favorite Autumn Picture Books

Here are some more great books for educational opportunities for the early elementary crowd!

• Flora’s Very Windy Day by Jeanne Birdsall. Find the direction of the wind outside.
• Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell. Compare apples and pumpkins (how they grow, etc.)
• Apples by Gail Gibbons. Great details in this non-fiction book.
• My Leaf Book by Monica Wellington. Compare the differences between leaves falling off of different trees.
• Amelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie by Herman Parrish.  Bake an apple pie.