The Harvest Sprites by Hayley Nystrom

Call me silly, but I believe there is something wonderful and magical about autumn.  I love the colors in the trees, the crispness in the air, wearing my warm sweaters and socks, wrapping myself in a blanket, and snuggling in with a good book.  I love the tastes and smells of freshly made apple cider and cinnamon doughnuts.  And I especially love the big bonfires and making s'mores with my family and friends.  Autumn is my favorite time of the year!

I recently found The Harvest Sprites by Hayley Nystrom.  I fell in love with it right away!  It's a fun book with beautiful illustrations of everything autumn has to offer.  Read on to learn more about The Harvest Sprites and how you can integrate it with your lessons at school.

Disclosure: Affiliate links to Amazon are included in this post.

Author Summary

When a crispness cuts through painted skies
With scents of leaf and hay...It means that fall is here!

Fall is a magical time of year, filled with bursts of color, crackling fires, tricks, treats, and so much more. The Harvest Sprites adore this time of year, each for their own special reason. Carmine and Crunch can always be found admiring and playing in the beautiful leaves, while Blossom and Patches pick apples, pumpkins, and other yummy, ripe treats. There's so much to do, see and celebrate this time of year, it really must be magic! What are YOUR favorite things about fall?

🍎 Title: The Harvest Sprites
🍎 Author: Hayley Mystrom

🍎 Illustrator: Alexandra Bulankina

🍎 Date: September 8, 2020

🍎 Publisher: Willow Moon Publishing

🍎 Pages: 36

Language Arts Lesson Plan

1. Before reading The Harvest Sprites, do a quick picture walk through the story and look at the illustrations... they are gorgeous!  Talk about what the children see on each page.  What are the characters doing?  They are each doing something autumn-related.

2. After picture walking through The Harvest Sprites, you may need to do an introductory lesson or two about symbolism.  When teaching symbolism to my classes, I always tell my students a symbol is a picture, sign, mark, or word that represents something.  When you see a symbol, it reminds you of something else.  Ask your students to think back to the picture walk.  Are there any examples of symbolism they can recall right away without looking back to the book?

3. You've picture walked through The Harvest Sprites.  You talked about symbolism with your students.  Now you can finally go ahead and read the story!  Depending on the ages of your students, some of them will notice immediately that some of the words rhyme and the story are written in poetic form.  The students will have fun learning about the sprites and what they are doing.  Take a few seconds after reading each page to ask them to recall the characters' names.  Younger children may get so engrossed in the illustrations, the rhythm, and the rhymes that they forget to pay attention to the words.  You may need to introduce Diwali and Dias de Muertos (the Days of the Dead) if your students aren't familiar with them as well.  

4. After reading and discussing The Harvest Sprites, identifying the characters of the story, and identifying the symbolism of each character, the students can use the following worksheets... made by yours truly... to write down everything you've talked about.  Again, the students can either work independently or in partner groups.  You can also complete this activity as a whole group if you prefer. 

 

To download a FREE copy of this reading comprehension activity (four pages in all), please click on the image above. Clicking on this image will take you to the Teachers-Pay-Teachers third-party website.  This is a FREE download-- no purchase necessary.

(Next Article: Grow! How We Get Food from Our Garden by Karl Beckstrand)