The Fall of Freddie the Leaf

We did a little more in Science Through Children's Literature today, this time talking about seasons and leaves falling, and read a book, The Fall of Freddie the Leaf.  This was an incredible book for all of us, one I hadn't seen before today.



I can't say enough good about this book.   The youngest got a little from it, but it really struck the 12yo.

Freddie is a leaf on a tree in a public space.  He tells us about himself and his friends, the other leaves.  He tells us about the spring and summer, the winds, the people who come to enjoy the shade.  Then he starts to change colors in the fall, and tells us about that.  He questions his wise friend, Daniel, another leaf, about what is next.  Daniel explains to him that they are changing colors and that the leaves are dying and falling in the winter, but that it is okay, they are all part of Life.  Freddie is frightened about dying, and Daniel reassures him and comforts him. 

On the surface this book is about the seasons of the tree.  But, of course, that is not all.  This book is about Life and Death, passing from one season to another in a year and in life. 

There are pictures of trees as the illustrations, a picture for most 2-page spreads but not every set.  There is a paragraph or two for most 2-page spreads.  This is a wonderful picture book for the elementary into middle school years really.  It is a beautiful story for all ages. 

Science Through Children's Literature

We love teaching/learning through living books and always have.  Below I talked about Art Through Children's Literature, and now I'll share some of what we are doing with Science Through Children's Literature.  The science has two levels, beginning and intermediate.  We are working on the beginning one with all, Zach for review, the rest maybe some new information.

Today, we talked about trees, using A Tree is Nice as the introduction story.  Honestly, despite this being a Caldecott Winner, I wasn't terribly impressed with this book.  The shape being tall and narrow like a tree was an interesting feature, and the illustrations (alternating color and pencil) were nice, but the vocabulary and sentence structure were bland to the extreme.  It read like one of those tortuous level 1 readers kids try out when first learning to sound out words.  Needless to say, my kids were a bit bored with this one. 

We are notebooking this year though as our note taking activity, so we all then got out the science notebooks to write down something we learned.  Lily made a beautiful picture to illustrate her coniferous/deciduous distinction in her notebook.