Old Lady Who Swallowed Leaves Book Companion October PreK K 1st 2nd Special Ed

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same book every day at circle time — a silly old lady keeps swallowing

one more thing, starting with the leaves right in the title — then pull one simple activity after the

read-aloud each day: sort, count, find the letter, get ready for a fall day outside, then build a craft

of a cat sitting under a tree with leaves falling around it. Every student page has one short

instruction with a picture, so a paraprofessional can run the room from it too.

This week pairs with **There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro** (or any

cumulative fall read-aloud you already have). Not affiliated with the author or publisher. You need

your own copy of the book; nothing from it is reproduced here — this unit does not claim the book's

exact list or order of what she swallows, only that she keeps wanting one more thing — and every

picture in the file is our own drawing or a licensed picture set, not the book's artwork.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (57 pages)

• 1 Start Here week plan: what to do after the read-aloud each day, plus what else it practices
• 1 book-and-words page naming the read-aloud, an original circle-time chant ("One More Thing,"

written for this unit — no song or story text is reprinted), and the 9 circle-time vocabulary

words

• 9 smartboard slides for whole-group circle time on a projector or interactive board: the cover

art, name the pictures, sort, count (3 slides), the letter hunt, the life skill in order, and the

core word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (leaf, cat, corn, pie, apple, tree,

basket, scarf, sun)

• Day 1, Sort (fall thing or not?), at 3 levels: Level 1 errorless matching, Level 2 the standard

two-group sort, Level 3 a third group added (fall thing, food, or toy) — 10 cut-and-glue pieces on

every level

• Day 2, Count the leaves, at 3 levels: Levels 1 and 2 count sets of 1 to 5 with a 5-piece numeral

strip to cut and glue; Level 3 counts sets of 6 to 10 and writes the number, no cutting

• Day 3, Letter L, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching L's, Level 2 finds L among 10 look-alike

letters, Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start with the /l/ sound

• Writing, at 3 levels: Level 1 traces the big letters, Level 2 traces letters and the word "leaf,"

Level 3 writes the letters and the word independently on primary lines

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page: 5 picture pieces (4 real steps for getting ready for a fall day

outside — jacket, boots, scarf, walk out the door — first/next/then/last, plus 1 that does not

belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a 7-piece scene — a big round fall tree, a sitting cat, and 5

falling leaves, every cut a straight dashed rectangle — and glue it into an autumn-yard coloring

scene

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (4 dashed paths from the cat to the tree: straight, wave,

zigzag, loops) and a cutting-practice page (4 strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "more": a big word card for the talker or core board, a

12-word find-and-circle grid (6 of the 12 are the target word), a tree to color, and 10 fall things

to cut out and glue around it — one more!

• 1 "Who Did What This Week" data page (one row per student, a prompt-level code for each day —

handy for IEP notes and progress reports)

• 1 family letter to send home on Day 1
• 1 credits page (art and font licenses)
• Ink-saver twins of 19 picture-based student pages (the craft and pure-coloring pages are

color-only) in outline art for a photocopier, so the color pages above are optional, not required

Three Levels On Every Academic Task

Sort, count, letters and writing each come in three levels, marked with a small shape instead of

a number so children don't compare theirs to a neighbor's: a circle for starting (errorless

matching), a square for building (the standard task), a triangle for ready for more (a real step

up — a third sort group, counting 6 to 10 with writing, or beginning sounds).

Cutting Built For Small Hands

Every cutting page carries 5 or more pieces, lined up edge to edge so each cut is one straight

line. Pre-cut them yourself for students who are not cutting independently yet.

Color Or Ink-Saver

Print the color pages, or use the ink-saver twins at the back on a photocopier — most

picture-based student pages have both (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only by design).

Who This Is For

Any teacher starting a self-contained preschool or early childhood special education classroom

who wants a whole week of circle time, ready to pull and go: one theme, a different simple

activity every day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around a cumulative fall read-aloud about an old lady who

keeps wanting one more thing. It is not a claim about any student's age or rate of progress, it does

not assert the book's exact list or order of what she swallows, and it does not reproduce any book,

its text, or its artwork — only our own tree, cat and leaf pieces are drawn here.