Count Down to Fall

by Fran Hawk, Sherry Neidigh (Illustrator)

Overview

Count backwards from 10 to one during one of the most colorful times of year: fall. Learn about the bright, colorful leaves and the trees from which they fall: aspen, birch, maple, oak, chestnut, linden, pine, beech, dogwood, and sweet gum. Watch the animals frolicking in the crisp, autumn air as they get ready for the approaching cold winter. The “For Creative Minds” educational section includes: Plant parts, Leaves—the shape of it all, What Good are Plants?, and Match the Leaves Activity. This nonfiction picture book with a cuddle factor and rhyming text includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 36-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. Count Down to Fall is vetted by experts and designed to encourage parental engagement. Its extensive back matter helps teachers with time-saving lesson ideas, provides extensions for science, math, and social studies units, and uses inquiry-based learning to help build critical thinking skills in young readers. The Spanish translation supports ELL and dual-language programs. The interactive ebook reads aloud in both English and Spanish with word highlighting and audio speed control to promote oral language skills, fluency, pronunciation, text engagement, and reading comprehension.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607188650
Publisher:	Arbordale Publishing
Publication date:	07/10/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,112,520
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD680L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Fran Hawk's favorite things are children, books, and writing. Writing children's books is her dream come true, because it combines all three. Fran resides in South Carolina, and when the famous Hunley submarine was raised from Charleston harbor, she wrote a children's book about the event. Her next book was called Ten Tips for Raising Readers, in which Fran shares all the best information she had gathered about bringing children and books together. One autumn afternoon, Fran was walking as leaves drifted down all around her. She realized she only knew the names of a few of them, so she got some leaf books from the library and worked on identifying them. Then, she thought it would be interesting to write a children's book that would make it fun to learn the names of leaves. The result was Count Down to Fall.

Sherry Neidigh, a graduate of Ringling School of Art and Design, has been freelance illustrating since 1987. Sherry's love of animals and nature comes through in her bright, colorful art. In addition to illustrating Deep in the Desert, Count Down to Fall, and The Best Nest for Arbordale, Sherry has illustrated several trade and education titles including Who Needs That Nose?, If I Had a Tail, and Black and White. Sherry lives in upstate South Carolina. For more information about Sherry, visit her website: http://www.sherryneidigh.com/

Editorial Reviews

PreS-Gr 2—Bold, full-spread illustrations with inset details feature a variety of trees and woodland animals in this informational picture book. As the facts about trees count down, the images represent the numbers 10 to 1, while corner insets show the tree, spring and fall leaves, a seed, and occasionally the flower of the specific tree pictured, such as birch, dogwood, oak, and maple. Children will be drawn to examine the expressive images of animals and find additional ones along the detailed border featuring close-ups of the tree's bark. This attention to detail makes the book more than a simple counting or seasonal book with both the four-line stanzas and art offering simple facts: "Six linden leaves/in Valentine shapes/reflect golden sun/in autumn's landscape." The counting pattern gets disrupted at three, opting for numerous "three-pointed maple leaves," and birch leaves shown falling "two by two." A spread, "For Creative Minds," includes quizzes and challenges readers to match facts with images, note specifics about leaf shapes, and learn about how plants support animals.—Janet S. Thompson, Chicago Public Library

School Library Journal

Beginning with the number ten, Hawk's verses count down different tree leaves/seeds in all their fall glory. "Nine dogwood leaves / bright shining scarlet, / drifting down, down, down- / like the tail of a comet." While the text is problematic-there are rhyme and scansion issues and one page does not name the tree featured at all-Neidigh's illustrations do not disappoint. Detailed borders include close-up views of the bark of each tree while corners depict the whole tree, the leaves (both summer and fall colors) and the seeds. Woodland animals round out each spread, in which readers can count the leaves. Most are very clear, but extra objects may occasionally confuse readers. Backmatter gives readers a chance to test their knowledge of plant parts, categorize leaves according to their shape, match summer and fall leaves and learn how people and animals use some of the trees featured in the text. The visual details make this a delight to the eye, but unfortunately the verses are not music to the ear. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews

"Children will be drawn to examine the expressive images of animals and find additional ones along the detailed border featuring close-ups of the tree’s bark. This attention to detail makes the book more than a simple counting or seasonal book with both the four-line stanzas and art offering simple facts - School Library Journal

From the Publisher