FREE FALL – PreK Literacy Activity

You know your a preschool teacher when…you are trying to take a selfie of yourself flying in the teacher resource room and praying another teacher doesn’t walk in.

I should probably explain. I re-stumbled upon the book Free Fall by David Wiesner, and wanted to use it as an activity for our Literacy Adventures class. Naturally, I had to take a picture to demonstrate how ‘fly’ for the activity.

I remember when I read this book as a kid and a completely creeped me out. The illustrations are beautiful but there is something about a chess board coming to life that left me uneasy.

Famous last words.

Because now I love it.

The illustrations still are a little bit unsettling to me. Then again, my dreams get downright weird at times, so all things considered this kids dream is not all that odd. The pictures in this book are abstract, but they serve to foster literacy creativity for Pre-K.

We did this activity during letter F week. And because the title is all in uppercase letters, the students worked on writing uppercase letters. Children at this age naturally gravitate toward writing in all uppercase letters. This is because of the larger size and longer lines, which is a bit easier on their developing fine motor skills. Coincidentally our letter F week landed smack in the middle of the Fall season, so I loved that we were doing a leaf activity.

Unintentionally, I also learned that this is a great activity for fostering direction following. My favorite part of the project was explaining to the children that I was going to take a picture of them ‘flying’ on their leaf. I proceeded to explain that I didn’t want the picture blurry, so they would have to ‘fly’ and then freeze for a picture. I was laughing hysterically as each child ensued to fly around the classroom and not one froze at the proper time. Without fail, I’d have to call them back to explain the directions a second time before I got each of them to freeze for a ‘flying’ picture.

Enjoying ‘flying’ with your little ones into an imaginative world of dreams!

Keep cultivating healing in your world!

~Rachael Belle

Materials

• • Free Fall book – Don’t forget to use my affiliate link!
  • Large leaf cut out
  • Picture of child ‘flying’
  • Glue
  • Markers, crayons, colored pencils

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Learning Objectives

• Child will use their imagination to ‘read’ this wordless story and expand their storytelling abilities
• Child will practice writing uppercase letters.
• Child will dictate clearly their version of where their ‘dream leaf’ takes them.

Activity Instructions

• Individually prompt the student to show you how they would ‘fly’ on a leaf. Snap a photo!
• On large leaf have the child write in all uppercase letters their name and  ‘FREE FALL’
• Have child dictate where he/she would go on their dream. Teacher writes or types.
• After pictures are printed have child glue themselves onto the flying leaf.