(upbeat music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and TK classroom.

My name is Mrs. Lara and today is day two of the five days that we're going to be together this week.

Let me add one more magnet to our ten frame.

I'm going to add it down here.

See, two.

And we have a lot to do today.

We are learning about fall or autumn which is a season in our year and fall or autumn is characterized by leaves falling down, a chill in the wind and maybe some pumpkin pie to eat.

Mm delicious, just like "Pete the Cat" in our story from yesterday's episode.

Now we're gonna start off our morning with a song.

I have my five little leaf song.

Do you remember that one?

If you don't have five little leaves on a board like I do use your five fingers and you can sing along with me.

It goes like this.

Five little leaves on a tree one day.

Happily in the wind they play.

Then a strong gust of wind blew through that town.

(wind blowing) - And one little leaf came tumbling down.

How many are left?

Let's see.

One, two, three, four.

Four leaves.

Four little leaves on a tree one day.

Happily in the wind they play.

Then a strong gust of wind blew through that town.

(wind blowing) - And one more little leaf blew down.

How many are left?

Can you tell without counting?

Three, that's right.

Three little leaves on a tree one day.

Happily in the wind they play.

Then a strong gust of wind blew through that town.

(wind blowing) - And one little leaf came tumbling down.

Now we have two leaves left.

Hmm, do you have to have something on your body?

That's right.

Two eyes, two ears, two hands.

Let's sing our song.

Two little leaves on a tree one day.

Happily in the wind they play.

Then a strong gust of wind blew through that town.

Get your wind ready.

(wind blowing) - And one little leaf came tumbling down.

Now we have one leaf.

Now, how do you feel when you're alone?

Kinda lonely, huh?

So we're going to make this leaf feel a little lonely.

One lonely leaf on a tree one day.

Very sadly in the wind it played.

Then a strong gust of wind blew through that town.

(wind blowing) - And the last little leaf came tumbling down.

So how many leaves are left?

None!

It was starting to look like how our trees are gonna look when fall is over.

No leaves on them whatsoever.

All right, so let's see if we got any mail from Miss Maria because I think that we have a book in our box and I'm ready to see what it is.

(doorbell rings) - Ooh, there's our doorbell.

I wonder what character it's gonna be today.

It says Dear Mrs. Lara Did you see see that I started to read on the left and then slid over to the right?

We're gonna sing our song about the left and the right.

Are you ready?

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.

Here we go.

Dear Mrs. Lara, you will never believe what happened to me.

What happened?

We wanna know!

Somebody stole my leaf.

Oh no.

Stealing is not nice.

Who would steal a leaf though?

Hmm.

One minute it was there and then it vanished.

Vanished means it's not there anymore.

Just like our leaves.

None, zero.

Oh no.

Please help.

Love, Squirrel.

What do you guys think?

Should we help Squirrel?

Yeah, okay.

Let's see Squirrel's story and see how we might help.

So here is our book.

It is called The Leaf Thief and look there's Squirrel.

Now Squirrel, you wanted us to help but it looks like you're the one taking the leaves.

I wonder.

This book was written by Alice Hemming and it's illustrated by Nicola Slater.

Look at that.

I knew the name of the book because it's in nice big letters here in the front and look, this is the spine of the book that holds all the pages and the back of the book.

So let's open it up and see the story of Squirrel and his stolen leaf.

There's lots of leaves there.

If you have the book I wonder if you can count them.

Here we go.

What a wonderful time of year.

I'm snug in my nest with a belly full of hazelnuts and the sun is shining through my leafy canopy.

Such lovely colors.

Red, gold, orange.

Red, gold, orange.

Oh that's a pattern, isn't it?

Red, gold... (gasp) - Wait a minute!

Look, there he is.

One of my leaves is...

Missing!

Where is it?

It's not in here.

Look, there he is in his tree.

It's not under here.

He's looking at his rock and look there's a little ant saying "Stop bothering me under the rock."

Bird!

There he goes, knocking on the bird house.

The bird is reading a book.

Just like we're reading a book here.

And I don't know if you can tell but it says Bowling for Beginners.

I didn't know birds like to bowl.

"What is the matter?"

said Bird.

"Someone stole my leaf," says Squirrel.

"Your leaf?"

Says Bird.

"Yes, one of my leaves is missing.

My leaf looks a lot like that one that the mouse has."

Oh, do you think that the mouse stole the squirrel's leaf?

Hmm.

"That is not your leaf, Squirrel."

"But how can you be sure?

Mouse, mouse!

Did you steal my leaf?"

The little mouse down here on a little boat says "No, this is my boat.

It is not your leaf."

"See Squirrel?

It is perfectly normal to lose a leaf or two at this time of year, okay?"

"Okay, thanks Bird.

See you tomorrow."

They're on the log.

I wonder if Squirrel is gonna let it go?

The next morning... "Oh no, this is bad.

Bird!"

"What is the matter this time?"

says Bird.

"More leaves have been stolen.

Excuse me, Woodpecker?

Are those my leaves?"

"No they are my leaves, Squirrel.

I spent ages collecting them," says the woodpecker.

Look, there's the leaves.

Look at poor Squirrel's expression.

He's going (gasp) - He really wants his leaves back.

"No one is taking your leaves, Squirrel.

This happened last year, remember?"

"Maybe."

"Why don't you go back to your nest and try to relax?"

"Okay.

Thanks, Bird."

Do you think that squirrel is going to try to relax?

I wonder.

Try to relax.

There he is, trying to do some yoga.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

He's in a pecan shell taking a nice warm bath.

Just relax.

He's in his bed.

Eyes wide open.

Does he look very relaxed?

No, but it's night time.

Take a look.

The following morning... "This is a disaster!

Bird, Bird!

Where are you Bird?"

"I'm here, Squirrel," says Bird.

"Wait a minute.

Are you the Leaf Thief?"

Now why would he think that?

What do you see on Bird's house that would make him think that the bird is stealing the leaves?

There's a garland and the bird is arranging leaves everywhere.

Bird says "No Squirrel, I am not the Leaf Thief.

I will show you the Leaf Thief."

Okay, finally.

We're gonna learn who's stealing all these leaves.

Who could it be?

Ooh, unexpected.

Who do you think it is?

It's not the bird.

It's not the mouse.

It's not the woodpecker.

Hmm.

"Look around you.

The Leaf Thief is everywhere.

It shakes the trees and rustles the leaves.

It even takes your hat.

Do you see the Leaf Thief, Squirrel?"

What do you think?

Do you see the Leaf Thief?

Look right here.

What is that?

Hmm.

"The only thief is the wind.

This happens every year in the autumn.

Every year!

The leaves change colors and the wind blows them away.

They'll grow back again in the spring.

Now I'm going home," says Bird.

"Please do not disturb me again."

"Oh," Squirrel says.

"It was just the wind.

The leaves change colors and the wind blows them away.

Of course.

No Leaf Thief at all.

Silly me.

I'm going to sleep well tonight."

Oh no.

Look.

He says "Bird!"

Bird says (sigh) - "Someone has stolen the grass!"

Squirrel says.

I don't know if you can see but way down here Mouse is actually skiing.

Isn't that fun?

Now if we have time after our project I'll read you this part of the story that talks about leaves changing colors and what we can expect in the autumn.

So what did you think?

Did you like that story?

It's one of my favorites.

There was no Leaf Thief after all, was there?

I'm gonna put that down and we're going to go on to our foundational skill because I love reading stories to you but I hope that one day you can read me a story.

So our foundational skill today is rhyming.

Do you remember rhyming words sound the same at the end.

So today we're going to try to find the words that rhyme with tree and I have a little song that's going to help us remember whether they rhyme or not.

It goes like this.

Who stole the fall leaves that rhyme with tree?

The wind took them away.

Can you bring them back to me?

Let's look at the leaves and let me know.

Do they rhyme with tree?

Yes or no?

All right, let's look at the first one.

Remember we're looking for words that rhyme with tree.

Acorn.

Does acorn rhyme with tree?

Acorn, tree.

No, they don't sound the same.

Boo to that.

All right, let's go to another one.

How about... Ooh, this looks like eyes but what do our eyes do?

They see.

So let's see.

Tree, see.

Do they sound the same?

They do, hurray!

Tree, see.

They both say ee.

All right, let's put that one right there.

How about this one?

Ooh, this is a funky number.

Look how colorful it is.

It's the number three.

Does three rhyme with tree?

Three, tree.

Yes, they sound the same at the end!

Three, tree.

They both say ee.

Putting it right here.

How about this one, key.

Does a key rhyme with tree?

Key, tree.

Yes they do.

Key, tree.

They both say ee.

Put that right there.

All right.

Now how about this one?

B.

B, B, tree.

Do they sound the same at the end?

They do.

B and tree are rhyming words.

B, tree.

They both say ee.

Look at all these rhyming words we have.

Let's do a few more here.

How about this one?

It's an apple.

Now I know an apple grows on trees.

Apple, tree?

Do they rhyme?

No.

Boo to that.

Okay.

How about the one way over there?

Bird.

I know birds live in trees.

Bird, tree.

No, they don't rhyme.

So let's see all our rhyming words we have.

We have key, see, three, B.

They all rhyme with tree, tree, tree.

So I hope that you continue to practice your rhyming words.

Right now we're gonna go over to our project place where we're going to finish our leaf rubbings.

So let's walk over.

I hope that you got a chance to go on a little nature walk and pick up some leaves of your own and do some leaf rubbings.

So remember yesterday we did these leaf rubbings with some crayons and we put different color leaves underneath and different sizes and then we kind of rubbed all over them like this to create this veining in different textures all over our paper.

So to make this extra colorful we're now going to paint over them.

So I wanted to show you first what I did here.

So you'll notice that some of the veins on this are a little bit darker.

So for this project I want you to go back over and grab your crayon whatever crayon that you use for your leaf rubbing and kind of go over the parts that you want to show up really, really well.

So for me I just kind of did the outline of the leaf and know that everywhere that you put crayon the paint is not going to absorb.

That means it's going to stick out and create something really colorful.

So there goes the outline.

There's the purple.

Now you don't have to do this part.

It'll look equally beautiful if you don't.

This is just a little something that I learned when I was doing this project to make it extra vibrant.

That means the colors really stand out.

I just went over that like that.

Okay.

Do you see it a lot more clearly now?

Let me do a little bit with this red one before we move on to the paint.

So I'm going to go back through with the stem.

Now this red one was the one that had lots of leaves in it so I'm just going to outline those.

This one looked almost like fire when I was rubbing all the crayon on it.

Look at that.

See that?

And now I'm going to do the last one which was the orange one.

I'm just going to trace over the outline before we pick our water colors.

Now if you don't have them ready go ahead and grab your watercolors.

It's time to do a little painting.

And if you don't have watercolors and still want to try this project a good alternative is to use markers with a little bit of water.

So use some old markers that you have laying around and you can actually dip them in a little water and it creates kind of like a paint that you can use.

And of course I showed you how to paint on our foil that we did as well.

But here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to take my paintbrush and my friend Mrs. Read-Write taught me that we have to pretend like it's a ballerina dancing around.

We're going to dip in some water (playful gurgling) - Oh no, our ballerina is drowning!

No, we don't want that.

It's just the skirt part.

And then we're going to pick a color.

Now I like to pick complimentary or opposites on the color wheel.

So if we think of purple we might think of a red because that'll really stand out or an orange.

So I'm going to dip in and make my ballerina dance around my watercolors and then I'm just going to paint it all up.

It's kind of hard to see on camera but when you paint it, see how you can see the crayon kind of sticks out in a very beautiful way?

I'm going to dip a little bit more.

Okay, and then make it dance around carefully.

Now the very cool thing about this is you can do it over and over again because there's lots of art and leaves all around you.

So you can go back through and create another art piece and you don't even have to paint it.

I just thought it would look so beautiful in these fall colors.

Red, yellow, brown, orange.

Now notice I'm not using too, too much water and the reason for that is you don't want to drown your paper.

Just a little bit.

Okay, what do you think?

Let me show you.

Isn't that looking beautiful?

Now let's take our paper towel here that I keep handy and you might want to as well, and pick another color.

Now this is orange and I know the opposite of orange is blue so I'm going to dip my paint in and dip it in the blue here and make it dance around.

Look at that.

How it sticks out.

Beautiful.

I maybe added a little too much water.

You can kind of see, I'll just spread it around here.

Try to cover the whole piece a little bit more blue.

I wonder what colors you're going to pick.

Whenever I think of you boys and girls doing this activity I wonder how creative are they going to get?

I hope that you get very creative and that you're not too hard on yourself.

Sometimes when I'm painting I think I don't like this and I want to crumble it all up.

Nope!

Keep going.

You never know.

Even if you make a mistake it might be a happy accident.

Okay.

Next I have red.

So maybe I'll do a green for the red.

Let's try that.

And then I'll show you the finished product.

I think we'll just have just enough time for me to show you another book that that I recommend here.

I love going to the library and picking up books that you might want to read in addition to the ones that I read here for you.

Love reading.

I used to love to read when I was a little girl too.

I would always be under my covers reading a book when I should be sleeping.

All right.

Here's the finished product.

Of course you're going to let it dry.

What do you think?

It's kind of a modern take on a leaf rubbing art piece, hm?

And if you make one be sure to send me a copy here at this station with a picture or just a little note to let me know that you tried this activity.

I love to see what you create and what your brain comes up with.

So it looks like we have just enough time for me to recommend another book to you.

This one's called When Autumn Comes and I'll show you the inside of it too.

All right.

When Autumn Comes, now what I like about this book is it's again a non-fiction text so it's a book that has real pictures and actual facts about autumn so let's look.

It shows us right here all the sports that are played in autumn.

So remember in Pete The Cat they played football.

That's an autumn sport.

And here soccer.

Look, our friends are playing soccer.

Do you guys play soccer?

Oh, I see lots of boys and girls outside in the field playing soccer.

And it looks like in autumn is a time for fixing houses to prepare for the long winter.

Look at here he is getting his window repaired, putting blankets out to dry, chopping wood with a chainsaw.

Those might be things that you don't do but you might see someone doing around your neighborhood.

Be on the lookout.

Okay you already know my favorite autumn activity.

Do you remember?

You pile up the leaves and jump in but you got to let out a good yell when you're jumping and be careful.

We never know what's inside the pile.

Make sure you check before you jump.

Ooh.

Look at this little boy.

He didn't check.

He's all covered in leaves.

All right.

Let's look at a few more pictures and I'll show you two other books that I recommend.

Look it.

This corn and pumpkins.

Have you ever gone to the pumpkin patch?

Ooh, that's something we do in the fall, isn't it?

We might see squirrels gathering acorns and different things for the long winter.

And one last thing I wanted to show you.

The trees are going to start looking like this.

You're going to be able to see all the branches because they're not going to have any leaves.

So I hope that you check out this book in the library and then of course there are two others I'm recommending.

I Love Fall and We're Going on a Leaf Hunt.

So be on the lookout for those and then all around your neighborhood be on the lookout for signs of fall too.

Are leaves falling down?

Changing colors?

Is there a chill in the air?

Okay.

It looks like we have just enough time to sing our goodbye alphabet song and then I'll tell you what we're going to do tomorrow.

So ready?

Sing with me.

A, B, C ya later.

D, E, F, G I'm gonna miss ya.

H, I have to go now.

J, K, buh-bye now.

L, M, N. Don't go too fast when you say those.

O, I had a good time.

P, Q, R ya gonna miss me?

S, T, U are my best friend.

V, W, X, Y, Z.

All right, boys and girls, I'll Z you tomorrow.

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

We're going to keep focused on reading books and we're actually gonna read a story about an old lady who swallowed some leaves.

She did.

She swallowed leaves, a pumpkin, some pants, a shirt, rope and a pole.

What do you think she did with all of that?

I bet her stomach was this huge.

So I can't wait to read that book with you.

We're going to do some story sequencing and then we're going to make a project that'll help you sequence the story at home as well.

So start gathering your recycled materials.

All right.

Until tomorrow.

Mrs. Lara sends you up big squeeze and and a big smooch, mwah!

and reminds you to read and to play, to use your imagination and five senses every single day.

Goodbye friends!

(upbeat music)