Random Fall Activities

This year we joined a preschool co-op with our homeschool group. We meet once a week, and so far it's been great. Three enjoys it, and Four....well, he likes the playing after. :) This is a picture from co-op where we did "nature painting." Here is Three painting a leaf, and a stick with a feather.

I used the boys hand/arm to make the tree trunk by painting them brown. I put out "fall" colored paint--red/yellow/orange/green--and they dipped fingers in and made leaves using their fingertips. You can see (the top one) where Three made "falling leaves" in a line. :)

I added some fall items to our "oatmeal box." I put in a few leaves that are bright fall colors, some pine straw, some acorns and a small pinecone. The oatmeal box is a small box I bought at $Tree with a flip top lid. I filled it with dry oats, and try to switch out the small objects inside it. The boys will take a spoon (or their hands) and dig through the oatmeal to find the "prizes." It's usually a messy activity...but the clean up only involves a vacuum, and the large thing of generic oats is a buck.

I wrote out some "simple story problems" for Three to work on. Things like:

The squirrels are getting ready for winter. Brown squirrel collected 4 acorns. Grey squirrel collected 2 acorns. How many acorns do the squirrels have?

We'll work on learning what the "+" and "=" signs mean, as well as simple addition.

I printed these onto cardstock: http://scrapbooking.about.com/od/layouts/ig/Rebecca-s-Fall-Leaf-Layout/Fall-Leaf-Pattern.htm and let the boys finger paint on them with brown/orange/red/yellow...then I let them dry and cut the shapes out and hung them in the window.

Three did a leaf craft that I ordered from Oriental Trading (a couple years ago actually) that could be easily replicated. Cut out a leaf shape, and you would paint it with glue, and add small pieces of tissue paper crumpled up in fall colors. It's hanging in our window, but I don't have a picture.

In the spirit of thanksgiving, I'm putting up a tree trunk in the window, and from now until thanksgiving we will be adding one leaf a day with something we are thankful for written on it. I've been doing it since the girls were Three's age (sigh...8 years ago.) I used the same leaf templates from above to cut out leaves in orange/yellow/red to write our gratitude on.

Fall crafts

Three is 100% obsessed with all things Toy Story 3, and really, who can blame him? Here he is dressed as Woody:


This craft is one I ordered from Oriental Trading Company. It has the feathers, turkey body, beak, eyes, hats and boots (which Three thought was so silly!) and the child just sticks them together. Easy, and cute.

Finished turkey:

He was proud and wanted to hold it up for the picture...but you couldn't really see it that way so I took the other shot (above) but wanted to show his "proud" picture as well.

This is a simple craft, I cut the tree trunk from a brown paper grocery bag. Three glued it on the blue paper (it's the sky dontchaknow) and added leaf stickers. In the bottom left hand corner you see a "big pile of leaves because the leaves are falling off the trees now that it's faaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll." Three always says fall with this huge drawl. It's sort of adorable, but I could be partial. There are no pictures of the process as he did this craft with One while I was at a dr. appt earlier in the week.

Another OTC craft (and I'm pretty sure those leaf stickers are from there too), in this one you take the yellow tissue paper squares and ball them up and add them to a leaf cutout. The leaf cut out comes with a peel-off cover, revealing a sticky side. No glue involved. My kind of crafting!

Three's finished leaf:

Four is a ham, and was YELLING at me while I was snapping pictures of Three doing his work the other day, because he wanted HIS picture taken TOO! So, here you have it. He's "cheesing" so hard you can't even see his eyes! Stinker.

An OTC tip: Everything comes in quantity of 12. What we do is get a group of us, everyone picks a couple crafts (depending on how many you want to order total,) then we divide the lot up. So, each family might get 2 or 3 of the craft. That turkey craft you see, Three did that last year as well...because I had 2 of them. So, get some friends together and order from OTC, their crafts are usually pretty good.

Upcoming blog: One and Two's school projects! Recipes that our family loves! And, New Holiday Traditions.

Week of October 29, 2007

Here are our ghosts. One is a shot of the one on the mailbox and the tree, then a close up of the one by the front door.

Today we did some of our review work, we played Mercury and Venus Jeopardy again (which is fun) and added a couple things to our lapbook. I like the way it's coming along and can tell that it will be a useful tool. It will be a good first effort anyway!

The girls wrote acrostic poems using the word AUTUMN. They were cute. DD#2 drew two scarecrows to compare and contrast. And DD#1 reviewed the parts of a newspaper and read an article about wind tunnels (which she was VERY into). She now is outside seeing if it is windy enough here for her to fly. I'll keep you updated on how that turns out. ;)

I'm waiting for the leaves to start changing colors, but at least it's finally starting to FEEL like Fall!!! Woo hooo. Fall is my favorite season.

Here is a video of my walking baby....I can't even believe it:

A busy, crazy, wonderful week.

Hello all! I hope you've had a great week. We were busy and it was crazy but we had a wonderful time! :-) We had bowling league on Monday, and soccer. Wednesday we did a corn maze (a maze cut through a corn field), and dance. Thursday we went out to a farm and spent all day, it was amazing and I can't wait to go back! We also had soccer on Thursday. It made for a busy time, but we had a lot of fun, so it was worth it.



DD#1 made lunch on Tuesday, Pita Pizza's. They are simple to make, and YUMMY. You just need pita's, pizza sauce, cheese, and any other topping you might like (we used cubed ham). Smear and bake. Easy peasy. Here are pictures of her making them:

Step1: Open pitas

Step 2: Add sauce

Step 3: Add grated cheese

Step 4: Add ham, and sprinkle parmesan.

Step 5: Bake!

Step 6: Enjoy!

I got a few things accomplished. I got my art cards laminated and cut out. I got my sound bottles made up, but not my smell ones. I'll have to postpone those until next time I guess. I also made a felt set for "Five Little Pumpkins" for the littlest. Here is the set, I printed from dltk-kids.com, and then a shot of him "finding" it.








I also copied and am working on cutting out the pictures from Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? for the felt board. Then I'll laminate them and put some velcro on the back so we can use them along with the story. I also got started on finger puppets for Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I finished Goldilocks, but still need to work on the bears. I'm really surprised I got even this much done, since we really were only home 2 days this week. The next zone is: Language. I want to get some new grammar materials made for the girls, and also maybe some Spanish things. We'll see where my brain takes me as I get the grammar things done. It looks like a calmer week, so maybe I'll get more accomplished. I also need to finish our sign language cards. I have one set done, but I made 2 sets. The second is laminated and about 1/3 cut out. I'll get that done this week as well.

Here are some pictures from our trips to share:

Kids at the farm:

DD#2 almost completley buried in corn!

The littlest, not quite sure he liked the corn (he was being so very dramatic all day):

Deciding maybe it's not so bad after all:

Heading into the corn maze at the farm (we had done one the day before too):