(upbeat music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and TK classroom.

My name is Ms. Lara, and today is day one of the five days that we're going to be together.

Let me show you what that looks like.

One, we have so much to do this week.

Have you noticed that things around you are changing colors, like the leaves on the trees, and maybe you're wearing clothing that keeps you warm because the weather is chillier?

Well, there's a name for that.

It's called a season, and we're entering a new season.

We're saying goodbye, summer, and hell, fall, also called autumn.

So we're gonna read books all about fall and autumn and sing songs about that season too.

And actually I have a good song for you about five little leaves.

So let me grab them right here.

Here they are, my five little leaves.

Let's count them, one, two, three, four, five.

And the songs tune is like this, ♪ Five little leaves on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ Then a strong gust of wind (wind blowing) blew one away.

And the little leaf went a way like this.

So how many do we have left?

One, two, three, four.

Let's sing the song again.

♪ Five little leaves on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily on a tree they play ♪ Get your wind ready.

Then a strong gust of wind (wind blowing) blew through the town.

And one little leaf came tumbling down.

There goes that leaf.

How many do I have left?

One, two, three.

Okay, let's see if we can get them all off the tree.

♪ Five little leaves on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ ♪ Then a strong gust of wind ♪ (wind blowing) ♪ Blew through the town ♪ ♪ And another little leaf came tumbling down ♪ Without counting, can you tell me how many are left?

Two, that's right.

♪ Two little on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ ♪ A strong gust of wind ♪ (wind blowing) ♪ Blew through the town ♪ ♪ And another little leaf came tumbling down ♪ How many are left?

One, that's right.

Guys, last time we're going to sing it today.

♪ One lonely leaf on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Very sadly went to play ♪ ♪ Then a strong gust of wind blew through that town ♪ (wind blows) ♪ And the last little leaf came tumbling down.

♪ So how many leaves are left?

Zero, that's right, there's none.

So I hope that you enjoyed that song with the leaves.

And if you don't have leaves at home, don't worry, your fingers could be the leaves.

I love singing songs and I also love getting mail.

And I think Ms. Maria is going to bring some mail for me.

(bell rings) There it is, the doorbell.

I wonder what book character wrote us a letter today.

Let's check.

So look, here's our letter.

Now, before we read our letter, we have to remind ourselves, hmm, where do we start to read?

Now you already know we start at the left and slide to the right.

And today I have a new song for you.

That's gonna help you remember.

It goes like this, to the tune of the "Wheels on the Bus," goes.

♪ Let's read the words from left to right, ♪ ♪ Left to right, left to right ♪ ♪ Let's read the words from left to right ♪ ♪ That's the way we read words ♪ So here we are, left to right.

It says, "Dear Ms. Lara.

Have I got a story for you!

I hear that summer is ending."

That's true, summer is over.

No more swimming, no more very hot sun, no more ice cream cones.

Well, we'll still have ice cream cones.

"I love summer."

Me too.

"What is there to love about autumn anyway?"

So what is there to love about autumn, hmm, also called fall?

I think that Ms. Maria left me a book in here, that's gonna help us remember that there's lots of things to do in the fall too.

Let's see what book it is.

Ooh, it's one of our favorite characters.

Do you see who it is?

It's Pete the Cat.

And Pete the Cat says, "Ooh, I'm falling for autumn."

So we have a video story that we're gonna watch about Pete the Cat, where he's gonna learn to fall in love with fall all over again.

So let's watch together.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] It's Story time.

"Pete the Cat, Falling for Autumn" by Kimberly and James Dean.

♪ The cat ♪ (upbeat music) It's the first day of fall, and Pete the Cat is feeling blue.

"I like summer and better," he says.

"In summer I can swim and surf and play at the beach."

"Maybe you just need to remind yourself of all the things you love about autumn," Mom suggests.

"Hmm," Pete says, "I'll try."

Pete finds grandma in the kitchen, she's baking delicious pumpkin pies.

The whole house smells sweet and spicy.

Pete loves helping grandma bake pumpkin pie, but he loves eating it just a little more.

After the baking is done, Pete picks a squat orange pumpkin from the counter and slips it into his backpack as a souvenir.

Next, Pete heads to the town Corn Maze, he and his friends wander through the long twisty paths made of tall corn stocks.

As he leaves, he plucks and golden corncob from the maze, and places it inside his backpack.

Then Pete visits Grandpa who is knitting on the porch.

Together, Pete and Grandpa make a long cozy scarf for Pete to wear.

When they're done, Pete chooses a little ball of leftover yarn and places it inside his backpack.

Next, Pete goes to the hayride at the park.

Pete, Mom, Dad and Grandpa all pile into a wagon filled with hay.

They go on a bumpy wagon ride around the park.

At the end of the ride, Pete grabs a handful of sweet smelling hay from the wagon and stuffs it into his backpack.

Pete heads over to the Apple Orchard where he and Kelly go apple picking.

They eat sweet apple donuts and drink hot apple sire and fill their buckets with apples of all different shapes and sizes.

Before he leaves, Pete chooses around red apple and drops it into his backpack.

Next, Pete stops by the park, he plays touch football with Bob and their friends.

Pete scores a touchdown and everyone cheers.

(spectators cheering) After the game, Pete grabs Bob's football and stuffs it into his backpack, it barely fits.

"Bob won't mind if I borrow this," Pete says.

Finally, Pete heads back home, but he stops in his front yard, which is covered in bright leaves from the trees.

He helps his dad rake the leaves into big colorful mounds.

Then Pete runs and jumps into all the leaf piles.

After he's done jumping, Pete picks a bunch of red and gold and orange leaves and stuffs them into his backpack.

Pete's backpack is bursting with fall's souvenirs.

He can't wait to show mom.

"I love autumn," Pete says.

Pete helps mom fill a basket with all his mementos.

They placed the basket at the center of the table.

Just then the doorbell rings.

(doorbell rings) All of Pete's family and friends are here.

They gather around the dining room table and tell stories and laugh at jokes while they eat.

Everyone is having a great time.

Pete looks around the table and smiles.

He loves lots of things about autumn, but Pete knows what he loves most, all year long, his family and friends.

The end.

♪ Pete the Cat ♪ (upbeat music) - So what did you think?

Did you like the story of "Pete the Cat Falling for Autumn?"

Now, remember you can check out lots of Pete the Cat stories and other fall books at your local library, your local free little library, which are now at certain school sites at Fresno Unified, and on the Sora app.

Now, I loved this book, and I wanted to show you my favorite parts.

Maybe it was your favorite part too.

Do you remember when Pete the Cat got the football and he scored a touchdown?

I wonder how he felt?

Probably very happy because everybody cheered.

And this is another one of my favorite parts of the story.

Remember Pete's dad was raking up the leaves, and then Pete ran and jumped in, whoosh I don't think Pete's dad liked it very much, but I bet Pete had a lot of fun, didn't he?

Now, there's a lot of fun things that you can do in autumn or fall.

For our foundational skill today, I'd like you to help me sort the things that we can do in the fall, that are happy things and things that maybe we can't do in the fall because of the weather.

Are you ready to help me?

Okay, here's Pete.

He's learning to love fall again.

So let's see, swimming.

Is swimming something that we do in autumn or fall when the weather is chilly?

No, it's too cold, silly.

We don't go swimming in the fall.

Pete the Cat can't do that at all.

How about the leaves?

Hmm, do we rake leaves in the fall?

Do you remember what Pete said?

That's right, his dad was raking leaves because all the leaves fall from the trees.

So that's something we can do.

And also jump in the piles like Pete.

How about sandcastles at the beach, is that something we would do in the fall?

Hmm, try to think, fall is a time that's windy, there's no leaves on the trees, maybe a bit a chilly, you might not wanna go to the beach.

And because it's so windy, the sand will get everywhere if you try to build a castle.

How about a corn maze?

Did Pete get to go on a corn maze?

He did, he got to go on a corn maze with all of his friends.

And I think we have one here in town that you can go to, at least we used to, and the husks were really tough, it was a little scary if it was very long, but Pete managed to find his way with his friends, didn't he?

How about pumpkin pie?

Is that something you might do in the fall time?

Yes, there's actually a very special holiday that we celebrate in the fall called Thanksgiving, and it's kind of known for turkey and pumpkin pie.

In our story, Pete, the cat was baking pumpkin pie, and he loved eating it most of all.

How about surfing, could Pete the Cat go surfing?

No, too cold, that's for summer.

How about picking apples?

Yes, Pete the Cat went and picked some apples from the apple orchard, and then he got apple cider and donuts, doesn't that sound like a fun time?

Hmm, I'm starting to love fall too.

One more thing, how about tractor rides?

In the story, Pete and his family went on tractor rides, and it was super bumpy, he went up and down.

And we have one here in town as well, that's also bumpy.

So you might wanna ask your family to see if you can go on a tractor ride like Pete.

So, of course, I love to read you stories, but I also love to leave you with a little activity where you can extend the learning at home where you are.

So we're gonna go over to our project place where I have a fun activity plan for us.

Let's hop over there.

So for today's activity, we're actually going to do leaf rubbings.

Now, you might've done leaf rubbings already.

Maybe if you've gone to class before with your family, it's a super simple activity that just requires a few materials.

You're gonna need some crowns, some leaves and some paper.

And this is what you're going to end up with.

Might be a little hard to see, but you can actually see the impression of the leaf.

So I'm gonna show you how to do it.

So the very first thing that you're going to need are some leaves, and I went on my leaf hunt today.

I was so excited to find all kinds of leaves.

Let me show them to you.

I found little leaves, little leaves like this with lots of leaves on one stem.

Oh, they're even falling.

And I found big giant leaves like this, the size of my hand.

And then I found some leaves that were already changing color, so they were brown, a little like this.

And then I found kind of around or leaves, do you see the difference?

Okay, this one's kind of spiky and this one is round, and you can even see the round edges here.

Now, when you find your leaves, I want you to notice, by turning them around, what do you see?

You might be surprised to find some lines there on the leaf.

That is how the leaf drinks its water, it stays alive.

Now, for your homework today, I want you to look up with your family why leaves change colors and why they have these little veins or lines on the back of them.

All right, once you've gotten your leaves of all different sizes, and hopefully you have a little more color variety than I do today.

You're going to wanna take your paper and put your leaf under the paper.

Now, I like to put my leaf and have the side that's a little rougher up, so you're gonna have to feel your leaf.

This is the smooth side here.

And then this is the rough side.

You wanna make sure that the rough side is facing up, and that you're able to look at it if you look down.

I'm gonna take just regular old paper like this.

You can use whatever you have, and then I'm going to need a crown.

Now of course, the crowns that we buy at the store, they come with a wrapper on them.

But for this activity, we need to take the wrappers off.

Now this can be a little frustrating for little hands and big hands too, unless you have very sharp nails.

Those wrappers don't wanna come off.

So a little tip I have for you is to soak them in warm water for up to an hour and they just peel right off.

So this is what they're gonna look like, a crown without a wrapper.

I think there's a book about that actually.

And you're going to want to lay your crown down.

So normally, we would hold our crown like this, like we would a pencil.

But having it like this would just be too harsh on the leaf.

We kind of wanna lay it down.

So your crown has to go to sleep (snores) and snore, and then you're going to take it and go back and forth where you see the leaf through the paper.

I'll show you in just a minute what it looks like.

Look at that.

You don't wanna press too, too hard because I have already had one of my crowns break.

Don't throw them away.

Broken crowns are still good crowns, they're just a little special, all right?

So here is what my leaf imprint is looking like so far.

What do you think?

Should we try it with another leaf?

Let me get to the long skinny leaf with lots of different leaves on one stem.

I'm gonna put it on a different side of the paper here.

Make sure that the paper's covering it.

And what color should I use?

I tried orange.

Oh, I have some red here.

Should I try red?

Here we go, let's see what it's gonna look like.

Woo, I see the stem.

I move my paper a little here.

Here it goes, oh, it almost looks like fire erupting out.

Now, we're gonna use our leaf rubbings for another activity tomorrow.

So make sure that you stay with them because we're not quite done with them yet.

Look at this, what do you think?

Let's try another leaf here.

All right, this is the largest one.

I need to find a spot on my paper for stuff to feel, which is the rough side?

What's this one?

I'm gonna put it right here.

Now, my paper isn't gonna cover the whole thing, it's only going to be partially covered.

Partially is a fancy word that means, not all the way, so many use, ooh, see, I'm gonna use my broken crown, because we can't leave them out.

Here we go, and this one I believe is purple.

Here we go.

A part of the fun of this activity is being able to go out in nature and see what you find and explore.

In just a moment, I'm gonna recommend a book to you about going out in nature and going on a leaf hunt.

Okay, let me get try to get all the framing in there.

Here we go, okay.

There, hey, this is what my leaf rubbing is looking like so far.

What do you guys think?

I see the long skinny one, the large one, the medium one.

And of course you can cover your whole paper, but I think this is gonna be just fine for now.

I have a book for you, actually a couple that I want to recommend.

The first one is called "We're Going on a Leaf Hunt" so that if you go to your local library or your local bookstore, check this one out so you can read it before you go and hunt for your leaves.

I also always recommend bringing in a non-fiction text.

That usually means a book without characters that tells true facts.

So this one's great, it's called, "I Love Fall."

And it tells some things about fall, like why the leaves change and different things like that.

So I hope that you check that out.

And it looks like we'll have time for me to show you another way that you can leave an impression with leaves.

So check this out.

Woo, I don't know if you can see that, it's kind of shiny, but there's a leaf in there.

There's an impression of it.

This activity might be great for three-year olds, two or three-year old because they love the texture and the sound that the foil makes.

So I'm gonna show you how I made that using the famous leaves that I have here.

So I'm gonna take my big leaf and I'm gonna put it down right here.

And maybe the small family, if I'm making a composition of leaves, seeing how I want them laid out.

I'm gonna take this one here and then maybe this kind of crunchier one here.

Although you don't want your leaves to be too crunchy because then they will just kind of fall apart on you.

Maybe I'll do this one here.

What do you think?

Woo, I love it.

Then you're gonna take a piece of foil, that's all you're going to need, and place it right on top of your composition.

Now, I've tried it both ways, shiny side up and I've tried it matte side, which is a non shiny side, and both ways with perfectly fine.

So this activity is a process activity.

So you're gonna want to go through and kind of feel around for the leaves.

And it might be hard to tell here on camera, but you can actually see all the imprints of the leaves on there.

And a little tip for parents, if you want a beautiful art print, you can have your child kind of go around and feel around for the leaves, of course it's making a noise, and then go back in with tempera paint, and have them paint the imprints, frame it up, and it's gorgeous.

You can even give those away to grandparents as gifts.

Okay, I'm gonna go around, feeling the different textures, rough and bumpy just like Pete's trust or ride, huh.

Trying to get as much with the leaf imprint as I can.

Let's see, getting in there with my fingers.

Now, don't go too roughly on the foil because it will tear.

Part of this is figuring out where's the leaf.

(laughs) Because the foil, unlike the paper is not see through a little bit, you kind of have to feel around, that's what makes this activity fun.

So I'll show you here in just a minute what the imprint is looking like.

Hopefully you can see it, at least here, the sound that it's making.

It's gonna be a little hard to tell on camera, but there is a leaf imprint on there.

It's beautiful, you see all the veining.

So go ahead and paint this up, frame it, and you'll see how beautiful it can be.

All right, boys and girls looks like we have just enough time to think our ABC song, and for me to tell you what we're going to do for the rest of the week.

So let me grab my alphabet cards.

My letter A got messy.

Look at that, needs a bath, has green all over it.

Oh, that a, you're ready to sing with me?

A, B, see you late.

D, E, F, this is my favorite, G, I'm gonna mess ya.

H, I have to go now, J, K bye, bye now.

L, M, O I had good time.

P, Q, are you gonna miss me?

S, T, you are my best frient, V, W, X, Y and Z X, Y, Z.

It's all right boys and girls, I'll Z you tomorrow.

So let me tell you what we're going to do.

Make sure that tomorrow you bring your leaf rubbings, the ones that we made together and your watercolors, because we're pointing to be adding some color to our leaf prints.

That way we can ping it up and it could look beautiful and all colorful.

So bring your water colors, water, your leaf rubbings, and any other leaf or embellishments that you might wanna add to your art.

We're also gonna be reading another book about a thief.

Oh, it's a squirrel friend I think.

He lost his leaf, did the bird take it?

We're gonna find out.

So join me tomorrow.

I'm gonna read the book live.

Until then, Ms. Lara sends you a big smooch (lips smacking) A big squeeze.

It reminds you that you read, play and enjoy the rest of your day.

See you later friends.

(upbeat music)