Lesson Plan for the Book Fall Is for Friends
Teach the Steps of Problem-Solving and How to Make and Test a Plan
Oct 10, 2008
Use Fall Is for Friends to teach the steps of the critical thinking skill of problem-solving: understand/identify the problem, make/test a plan, and check results.
Mastering the critical thinking skill of problem-solving by making and testing a plan will help children solve problems in content areas across the curriculum. Suzy Spafford's trade book Fall Is For Friends [Scholastic, Inc., 2003] offers a great model for this process, as Suzy Ducken and her best friend Emily create and try several plans to get autumn leaves to fall off trees. After completing the problem-solving lesson, continue the learning with activities relating to language arts, movement, art, drama, and music.
Lesson Objectives
- Students will identify the steps of problem-solving.
- Students will use the steps of problem-solving to write their own plans.
How to Teach Problem-Solving to Elementary Students
- Invite students to share any prior knowledge they have about what happens to leaves in the fall and why this happens. They might bring up how and why leaves change color, but guide them to focus on how leaves fall from trees.
- Share the book Fall Is for Friends. Display the cover, flip through the pictures, and have students predict what it will be about. Then read the book and check predictions.
- Introduce to students the steps of problem-solving: Identifying and understanding the problem, making a plan, testing the plan, and checking your results. Note that if your first plan does not work, you should return to the second step and make a new plan.
- Work with children to identify and discuss examples in the book of how Suzy and Emily used these steps to solve their problem. Have children identify the problem (how to help leaves fall off trees) and describe the process by which the two friends came up with plans, tested plans, checked the results, and then came up with new plans to try when a previous plan did not work.
Problem-Solving Assessment
- Discuss the science behind why leaves fall from trees (the connection between a leaf stem and a tree branch weakens until an exterior force severs it entirely). Note that none of the plans the friends try (cheering, showing the leaves how to fall, trying a magic spell, and singing) would actually do anything to get leaves to fall, and that although this isn't explained in the story, the leaves fall just because it was time for them to fall.
- Have students identify things that would actually make leaves fall, such as strong winds or the force of raindrops hitting the leaves.
- Ask students to use the steps of problem-solving to devise their own practical and science-based plans for getting leaves to fall off trees. Have students include a list of the materials they would need to test their plan.
- If possible, let students test their plan on trees whose leaves are ready to fall (and have already begun to fall). If not, just lead students in a discussion about what they would do if their initial plans did not work.
Enrichment Activities
- For an integrated language arts and movement activity, have students write and act out their own cheers to persuade leaves to fall.
- For an integrated art and drama activity, have students use construction paper and other art supplies to craft leaf costumes and create and perform a dance to show leaves how to fall.
- For an integrated language arts and music activity, have student write and perform their own song that will make leaves want to fall off trees. Students can use a familiar tune or compose their own.
Reading how characters make plans to solve problems can help students understand better how they themselves can solve problems in school and in life.
The copyright of the article Lesson Plan for the Book Fall Is for Friends in Primary School Lesson Plans is owned by Renee Carver. Permission to republish Lesson Plan for the Book Fall Is for Friends in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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