(upbeat music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and TK classroom.

My name is Ms. Lara, and I'd love to hear your name.

Hello, welcome to another day of the learning.

I'm so happy that you're here with me this morning.

How are you feeling this morning?

Are you a little tired?

Maybe a little grumpy.

Well, let's sing our feelings song to help us remember to check in with ourselves.

Do you remember it?

That tune is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and it goes like this.

♪ I have feelings so do you.

♪ ♪ Let's all sing about a few ♪ ♪ I am happy ♪ Make your best happy face (sighs) ♪ I am sad ♪ (groans) so sad.

♪ I am scared (groans) ♪ ♪ I am mad ♪ Oh, you can even stamp those feet.

♪ I am proud of being me.

♪ ♪ That's a feeling, do you see ♪ ♪ I have feelings you do too ♪ We're just saying about a few.

So remember, check in on how your heart and body are feeling today, and check in on those around you, make sure they're feeling okay too.

So, today is day four of the five days that we'll be together this week.

Let me add another magnet here.

One, two, three, four, we have so much to do today.

Do you remember what we're talking about?

That's right, we're talking about fall also called autumn, if you're a fancy, We're talking about how the leaves change colors and fall from the trees around this time, there's a chill in the air.

You might be eating some crunchy apples that are fresh or some delicious pumpkin pie.

We read a story yesterday about an old lady who ate something strange, huh?

Woo, some leaves, if you haven't checked out that book, make sure you check it out from yesterday's episode.

And today we have a whole new story to talk about, but before we get there, I want to remember our five little leaf song.

Hopefully by now you've learned it with me.

And if you don't have five little leaves, which you can gather from outside to sing with me, you can also use your fingers.

So get your fingers or your leaves ready?

We're gonna start with five, one, two, three, four, five.

Here we go.

♪ Five little leaves on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ ♪ Then a strong gust of wind blew through the town.

♪ Get your wind.

(wind blowing) ♪ And one little leaf came tumbling down ♪ Now there's four little leafs left.

One, two, three, four.

Let's start our song at four.

♪ Four little leaves on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ ♪ Then a strong gust of wind blew through the town ♪ (wind blowing) ♪ And one more leaf came tumbling down ♪ Now there's one, two, three.

Let's our song in three.

♪ Three little leaf on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ ♪ Then a strong gust of wind blew through the town ♪ (wind blowing) ♪ And one more leaf came tumbling down ♪ Now there's two, also called a pear or a duo.

Let's start at two.

♪ Two little leaves on a tree one day ♪ ♪ Happily in the wind they play ♪ ♪ Then a string gust of wind blew through the town ♪ (wind blowing) ♪ And one more little leaf blew down ♪ Now there's one lonely leaf on a tree one day, sadly in the wind it played, then the strongest of wind blew through the town.

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

Now, how many have left?

What is the number that means none?

That's right, zero, looks like an oval.

So we'll put our leaves down because I think it's time for another thing that starts with the letter L like the leaf.

What can it be?

Delivered by Ms. Maria.

(bell rings) It's a letter.

All right, here is our letter.

And just like in books, our letter has a bunch of words and different things that we have to make meaning of.

The first thing we learned when we start to read is to get our pointer finger and know where we start.

So we start on the left hand side to the right.

Do you remember our new song?

♪ 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.

♪ That's right, so get your pointer finger out.

You can help me as I track.

"Dear Ms.

Lara."

That's me.

"I heard that leaves fall down this time of year."

It's true, leaves fall down in autumn.

"Is it true?"

Yep.

"I am a leaf."

Ooh, so we know our character is a leaf.

"Oh no!

I don't want to fall for my nice cozy tree, help!"

Oh no, there's so leaf that doesn't wanna fall off the tree even though we know that in autumn all leaves fall down, can we help?

It says, "Love Leif."

Ooh, and it's spelled differently, that must be its name.

So let's see what book Ms. Maria left for us.

Woo, it's called "Leif and the Fall."

Now you'll notice I read the title of the book because just like us, books have names, and that's this book's name.

Leif is spelled a little differently because that's the name of the character, that must've been who wrote us the letter, this Leif.

It is by Allison Sweet Grant and Adam Grant, they're the authors who wrote the words.

And illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard, that's who drew the pictures.

Now, let's find out what's happening with this leaf that doesn't want to fall from the tree.

Says, "Leif is a leaf, a small green leaf with browning edges who leaves in a big Oak Tree."

That must be the tree where it lives.

"'The breeze is blowing harder,' Leif says to himself, 'The days are getting shorter, it's nearly fall.'

Leif knows that in the fall, leaves fall from the trees and Leif is worried."

What does it mean to be worried?

What kind of face might you make?

It was like this (groans) huh?

"'I don't want to bump my head, Leif says to friend Laurel.

'I don't wanna skin my knee, I don't want to fall.'

Laurel says, 'Let's figure out a way for you to catch yourself.'

'Hmm,' the other leaf say, 'All leaves fall in the fall.'"

So there's the other leaves, they're ready to fall.

But our leaf, Leif does not want to fall.

Let's see.

"But Leif is determined and with Laurel's help, he comes up with the plan," ti-ng'.

"The next day, Lief and Laurel gathered twigs and build a net.

'Now you can use the net to catch yourself,' Laurel says."

I wonder if the net is going to work.

"But the holes in the net too big and Leif is too small, he would slip right through.

Leif tosses the net to the ground below.

'You're wasting your time,' the other leaf say, 'All leaves fall in the fall.'

But Leif comes up with another plan.'"

Ti-ng.

"This time leaf and Laurel gather vine and secure leave to the branch."

Woo, what does that mean, secure?

I wonder if they're gonna tie him up.

"'No matter how strong the winds blow, you'll be able to hang on,' Laurel says."

There he his tying him up.

"But Leif accidentally wraps himself way too tight.

'Help,' he cries.

'I'll get you out,' Laurel says, and hurries to help.

Leif wiggles free and tosses the vine to the ground below."

Now, what's below?

There's the net and the vine.

"'You're wasting your time,' the other leaf say, 'All leaves fall in the fall.'

But Leif isn't done, he comes up with another plan.

He says, 'I'm going to build a kite out of bark and moss.'

'You can soar all the way down and land on a nice soft patch of grass,' Laurel says."

So there he is making his kite, he's tying himself up.

He's really not wanting to fall.

(laughs) I'm gonna show you what happens.

Oh no, look there, he is hanging upside down.

But the tail of the kite gets tangled in the branches and Leif ends up going nowhere at all.

He tosses the kite to the ground below.

But again, the other leaf say, "You're wasting your time, all leaves fall in the fall."

But still leave tries again, a swing, a trampoline, a parachute, Leif tries everything he can think of, but none of his ideas quite work, and may end up tossed to the ground below.

"Leif hangs from the branch feeling very disappointed."

Oh, that's another feeling word.

That means things didn't go like you planned.

"Laurel is sad too.

'You had a lot of good ideas,' Laurel says.

'We told you,' taunt the other leaves, 'You were just wasting your time, all leaves fall in the fall.'

Days past, the air grows cooler, the wind blow stronger, leaves edges turn browner.

'All leaves fall in the fall,' he thinks.

And he feels as if he has failed.

Leif hangs on from his branch, shivering and afraid.

Laurel gives him a squeeze.

All of sudden the wind chimes.

The brunch is shaking with one last large cold blast."

(wind blowing) "Leif can hang on no longer, and Leif falls."

If you are at home, you can give me a no, no, no, oh, no, what's gonna happen to poor Leif.

"He falls right into a pile of discarded ideas."

That means ideas that were tossed away, do you remember all of his ideas?

"All the ideas that Leif threw away, the ones he tossed to the ground because he thought they'd never work, made a structure tall enough and strong enough for him to stand on.

Leif cannot believe his eyes, he stands up and he smiles.

Then he grabs Laurel's hand and together they walked down to the ground below that ground below.

The end."

What did you think of that story?

So Leif, the leaf, didn't wanna fall down like all leaves do in the fall, hmm.

Now, in order for us to kind of practice the skills that we need for reading, like taking sounds apart and remembering the story, we always work on a foundational skill.

So let's start our work with that before we run out of time.

So you can see here, I have a tall tree, and on the tree are different items.

And then we have our letter L. Do you remember what sound the L makes?

It makes the l sound.

And it goes like this.

♪ The L says l ♪ ♪ The L says l ♪ ♪ Every ladder makes the sound, the L says l ♪ Now we're going to find the words or items that start with l and leave them on the tree.

The rest have to come falling down like Leif in our story.

So let's see, how about this one?

Do you see what this is?

It's an apple.

Hm, the beginning sound of apple is a.

Is that l?

No.

♪ Look the apple is falling down ♪ ♪ Falling down, falling down ♪ ♪ Look the apple is falling down ♪ ♪ It's beginning sound is not l ♪ Let's try another one.

How about this one?

Lizard, l, that's the first sound you hear, l. Does that match with our l from our L?

Yes, so it stays on the tree.

How about this one?

Lemons, l-emons.

Does that make the l sound at the very beginning?

It does.

Lemons and lizard both start with l, which is the sound that L makes.

What about this?

Do you recognize what this is?

Might be a fruit that you've not eaten a lot.

It's a fig.

Let's see the beginning sound, f, f, fig.

Hmm, does that say l?

No, that would be a lig, wouldn't it?

♪ Look the fig is falling down, falling down, falling down ♪ ♪ Look the fig is falling down ♪ ♪ It does not make the l sound ♪ Let's try some more.

How about this?

It's a log.

Does that have a beginning sound, l?

Log, yes, it makes the l, like the L. And how about this guy?

Ladybug, ladybug.

Yep, I hear that L sound too, ladybug.

How about this one?

It's a spider.

S-pider, do you hear that beginning sound, s?

Yeah, it's a s, not a l. ♪ Look the spider is falling down ♪ ♪ Falling down, falling down ♪ ♪ Look the spider is falling down ♪ ♪ Does not make the l sound ♪ All right, let's do one more.

How about lime?

Does lime sound like l at the beginning?

It does, that's right.

So I hope that you continue to practice your beginning sounds because taking apart sounds in words is what's gonna help you learn to read.

Now, you'll remember that we read the story of the old lady who swallowed some leaves yesterday, and we stopped at our scarecrow project, just making the head.

So now we're gonna finish it up today.

So let's go over to our project place.

So here we go, our project place.

So we're gonna make the body of the scarecrow today.

And we're going to make some, a shirt and some pants for him.

So he's gonna be nice and tall and we're done, so you can hang them up in the window.

So I'm gonna start by making a shirt.

And I think I'm going to make the shirt out of this beautiful purple paper.

Now, if you want to follow along with me, you can either get your head ready, that you made yesterday.

Or you can go back and watch yesterday's episode to get that ready.

And you'd need some paper, glue, scissors.

And I have a marker that I can use to add a little details.

So to make the shirt, I have to think, what does the shirt look like?

It has a neck here.

So a neck kind of goes down like this, and then it has a place for some shoulders, so I'm gonna make that.

And of course, I'm gonna draw it out first bit, and just start cutting.

And then I might make a place for some sleeves, I want them to have kind of curved sleeves.

I go down like this, make some sleeves, and then it goes down, a place for your body.

So here's what I have so far.

And we're gonna cut that out with our scissors, start making our scarecrow some clothes.

I like to make just the basics of a scarecrow.

Get him a shirt, some pants, and like to come in and add some details like hay, maybe some pockets or some buttons.

And I'll show you some colorful paper that I have that we can use to add that.

Here I go around the sleeves, notice I'm using my helper hand, keeping the scissors in front of me.

Now, comes the curve part, I have to take my sisters for a ride.

It's going down and up, and across.

One last jump and ta-da, we have our shirt.

So here's our shirt for our scarecrow.

Next we need some pants.

Woo, I'm gonna use some blue pants.

I think my scarecrows should have some blue pants.

What do you think?

Yeah, all right.

Now I want you to think in your head, what do pants look like?

Do you have some pants in your closet that you can look at?

Are you wearing pants?

Do they have to hold your hands?

No, they have to hold your legs and feet.

So they have a waist.

Usually there's a zipper there, and they have a place to put your feet.

And then it goes up and down, back down again and up.

Here we go, these are what my pants are looking like.

Woo, what do yours look like?

They might look a little different.

So I'm gonna put some pants, start cutting them out, all the way around down.

Now this part can be really tricky, making the clothes look just so.

Please know you can always go back and add details.

So if, like for me, I can already tell my pants are gonna be skinny, skinny jeans.

My scarecrow is gonna be rocking them.

But if yours come out too small, just make it work.

All kinds of scarecrows are what makes the world a not boring place.

All right, here we go.

Here are my pants, chup chup chup.

Next, we're gonna glue them together like this.

And here comes the fun part, we get to add some details like hay.

Oops, we forgot hands, let's do that.

So I have some paper bag that I use.

I'm gonna use that for my hands as well.

And since I'm gonna cut to them, I'm gonna use my trick of folding the paper over and then cut some hands.

I think my scarecrows is gonna have like mitten hands, because that's just what I've decided today.

But you can cut out five fingers too.

I've just decided that's what it's going to have.

You might make those decisions as well as you create your project.

So here we go.

And here we go.

(laughs) You can already tell my sleeves are a little short.

(laughs) Just go with it, go with it.

And then my scarecrow is gonna have some boots.

Ooh, he's gonna have pink boots.

What do we think?

High heel pink boots?

(laughs) Why not?

Let me see, maybe not.

Then he might look too approachable, and that's a word that means you wanna come near the scarecrow.

We wanna make them scary, no heels.

Still pink with boots.

Put a little glue.

Okay, there we are.

Now we can add the details.

Here's my basic scarecrow body.

I'm gonna add some details like some hay, hay, hay.

Do you remember how we cut the hay last time?

We just cut strips of paper like this, all the ways down, all the way down.

This is another technique that I used to cut grass as well.

And the I cut across.

Look at all this hay I made, hay.

I am gonna glue some hay on there.

Now, I always love, oh, this is a little long.

We need short hay for the hands, there we go.

I always love going around my neighborhood.

And sometimes my neighbors will put like teddy bears on their window, or they'll put different projects that their children have made.

It brightens my day when I go for walks, you should give that a try.

Help your community out.

Put some art on your windows if you don't get to go to a classroom.

All right, here we go.

Come on glue, sometimes we have to give it a shake.

All right, I'm gonna add some here.

Should we add pockets?

I think we have time.

Two, three, some hay.

Okay, maybe some hay at the bottom.

What do you think?

All right, follow along with me, I'm going to make hay, all over the place.

Let's put some hay down here, down at the legs.

Maybe a few will stick out from his stomach.

(laughs) Remember, he's stuffed with leaves or hay.

Now, I've never seen a scarecrow, but I understand that there's a huge scarecrow festival here nearby.

I need to find out more about it.

Wouldn't it be neat to see how different people make scarecrows?

Okay, here's what's the basic scarecrow is looking like.

Now I need some pockets.

And for that, I have some really fun paper, look.

All right, let's get, it's leaves.

Couldn't help myself, I had it in me.

Okay, let's get a pocket going.

Let's get our little pocket going.

We'll add details, then we'll glue our scarecrow on.

Maybe I'll glue it down here.

Have you checked out any of the books that I recommended?

Any of the leaf book?

There are so many at your local library.

I hope that you get to check it out.

Just adding some stitching.

Maybe, I'll add some, like little things like this to make it look like it's worn.

(laughs) And now I'm gonna glue my head on.

Last step, so you can see my scarecrow.

Now, this might take a little bit more glue than you're used to putting on.

And of course, it'll take a little while to dry.

I've tried to hold it down so I can lift it up and show you the finished product here before I have to say goodbye.

All right, I think it's holding.

What do we think?

(laughs) We've finished our scarecrow.

So I hope that you get to finish this project as well.

Give it a try, I'd be excited to see what year scarecrow looks like.

What fun details did you add?

Now, before I go, I want to give you a quick book recommendation.

Here's another leaf book that I won't get to read this week, but that's a good one that involved the bear, it's called "Leaves."

And it's about a bear searching for leaves.

And I'll let you look at the back cover.

That mean he's stretching up to feel the wind.

So check this one out at your local library or on the Sora app.

Come back tomorrow where we're gonna read a book about a man made of leaves.

I know, man made of leaves, I don't know.

We'll find out what it's about.

Until then boys and girls, a big smooch to you.

(lips smacking) We'll see you tomorrow, goodbye.

(upbeat music)