Fall is the perfect time for exploring themes such as apples, pumpkins, or leaves, but my favorite theme is scarecrows. I love including books about scarecrows and writing options about scarecrows, and I love decorating with scarecrows. Today, I’ll share scarecrow resources you can incorporate into your lessons.
Book Recommendations for a Scarecrow Theme
Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant
As you can see, there are a multitude of wonderful book options. Of these, Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant is by far my favorite. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed using this unit I developed to go with it. Last year, my students wrote the best stories about “The Day in the Life of a Scarecrow”. By using Cynthia Rylant’s book as a mentor text, the students were able to make better word choices to develop voice and imagery.
Otis and the Scarecrow by Loren Long
Another favorite from this list is Otis and the Scarecrow. I just love the Otis series. Maybe because it reminds me of home. Anyway, this one too is descriptive and would work well as a model for writing. You might tie in life on a farm and nonfiction farming books. The writing freebie to the right would work well as a follow up to the story.
Activity Ideas and Scarecrow Resources
Whether you’re in primary or upper elementary, there are many art options for scarecrows. I absolutely love the watercolor scarecrows, and what about the cute door decor. If you’re looking for instructional ways to tie in the art projects, you can certainly work on writing. Having your kids write how-to paragraphs about building a scarecrow, descriptive writing about spending the day as a scarecrow, or an informational paragraph about how scarecrows were invented are just a few I thought of. For other activity choices, check out the Pinterest board I developed.
Scarecrow Resources for Fluency
To keep your kids reading and thinking, you might give my partner plays a try. Both The Farmer and the Scarecrow and The Great Pumpkin Heist would both work well during October. Each set includes before, during, and after activities.
The Farmer and the Scarecrow is about how the scarecrow helps the farmer and keeps an eye on all the happenings at the farm. This is set up in the same manner with schema building, vocabulary, comprehension questions, and writing while The Great Pumpkin Heist is about a stolen jack-o-lantern.
Nonfiction Scarecrow Resources
There are quite a few options for activities with scarecrows, but I wanted to share with you a nonfiction option as well. The article below is a Close Reading set that students will read, highlight, and annotate to show their thinking. It is accompanied with two follow up activities too. Enjoy!
Other Related Posts:
Engaging Activities and Books about Fall You’ll Love
Ideas to Spice Up the Season and the Classroom Routine
What Scarecrow ideas do you have? I’d love for you to share them in the comments below.
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2 Responses
Thanks for starting this linky party & sharing some great ideas this fall! I have updated my blog post to include scarecrow theme & I look forward to next week's post.
Oh you are welcome. I really enjoyed it last year, so if you're looking for ideas, just look through my archives. 🙂