Last week was blissful (or stressful?) madness as the Book Fair took over our school library. It was incredibly successful and our sales were the highest they’ve been in the three years that I’ve been at the school. The kids had an awesome time and bought some great books! Favorites included The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, and of course Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth.

I took a wonderful trip this weekend to North Carolina. My BFF and I saw our FAVORITE band (Hanson!!!) play and then visited my beautiful nieces for the rest of the weekend. We were able to experience the beauty of fall that we miss out on in south Louisiana. The trees were incredible with their brightly colored leaves. Ours just turn brown and fall, we miss out on the vibrant colors.

Seeing all of these leaves made me think about how my kiddos at school miss out! So I brought a few ziplock bags full of colorful flowers home with me for this week’s lessons. Looking around made me think of one of my favorite fall stories — Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson and illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke.

This is a great story with stunning illustrations that just BEGS to be read aloud. Fletcher comes to understand what happens to trees in autumn. After our story, we are doing leaf rubbings with the leaves that I brought back from my trip. I’m telling you — the kids think these leaves are fake — most of them have never seen anything like them. It’s a fun activity and I used it for my formal observation today. It went very well and my assessor really enjoyed the activities. It’s great to have fun with my lessons the week before Thanksgiving break!