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.

Thanksgiving is coming!

I'm spending the next 2 weeks doing a thanksgiving unit that I downloaded from Homeschool Creations.

I'm also printing the "Roll a Turkey" game from A Lemon Squeezy Home.

And this: Thanksgiving Activity Sheet

As well as the corn maze, and color by letter sheets from Reading With Kids.

We also are collecting leaves and drying/pressing them for an activity with our co-op after thanksgiving.

Random Picture Catch Up Post

I know that I have severely neglected the blog...again. It was one of my "new year goals" to keep the blog updated regularly. Fail. Oh, well...there is always 2012. *wink wink*

My BFF and I took all our kids (minus Four, making a total of 6 kids) to a corn maze. Three worked on directions (left/right) and the big kids worked on working together.

After making his "mama snake" he counted "babies" and put them all in the nest.

He's rolling out a playdough snake. (I'm so glad I have a table cover on my gorgeous wooden table...look at what they've done to it.)

Do-A-Dot snake.

Three and Four painted a paper plate to make a snake...we hung them from the ceiling.

Finished snake.
Making his bead "mama snake."

Four making a "mama snake" out of beads as well....so serious.

This is probably one of Four's FAVORITE activities. It is wooden shapes (from a puzzle that had it's board broken, and a couple wooden shapes I picked up at the craft store) and an outline of the shape on index cards. Easy peasy, and he will do it three or four times in a row!

Frog paper bag puppet.

Going over a printable of the frog life cycle.

Putting the frog life cycle cards in order.

Painting a lily pad.

Finished lily pads.

Snakes

I'm currently doing units that Three is requesting, because well, he doesn't like what I pick. And, with public school recently starting back here, and the neighbor kids talking about all the fun things they were going to learn Three started talking about what he could learn when he goes to school...he seemed a little surprised that *I* could teach him those things NOW if he wanted. Seriously, who taught you all the things you already know, dude? Yeah, that would be ME! So, he asked to learn about animals....but then asked to learn about frogs. And, now, snakes. Uh huh, amphibians and reptiles. I got ya.

Snake Letter Craft I think I will adapt this to have "our" snake make a W...or some other letter, that would be easily made by a snake (I'm still in the planning phase, so I'm not sure what we'll end up with) as Three already knows S.

Counting Snakes

Snake Life Cycle Printable

Snake Craft I Love!

Snake Maze

Geared more for Four, but Three almost always wants to do whatever activity I have for his brother, we'll make a color snake. http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/msnake-colors.htm Four has a good grasp on colors, but almost always gets brown and black confused. So, our snake will probably have more than one black/brown segment. :)

We will visit the science museum and look at some native snakes.

For gross motor we'll slither on our bellies like snakes. :)

For fine motor, we'll make a bead snake on a pipe cleaner.

We also have our first preschool co-op meeting this week, and a park day. This should be more than enough activities to keep us busy.

Muffin Tin Monday

We did Muffin Tin Monday today, but I was pressed for time and didn't get a picture before letting them chow down. Today was our first "back to school" day (which means I had my rear in gear) and I took the boys to the park this morning....meaning that I had to get lunch together quick when we came home, and they were starving. Seriously, my boys are always starving.

Anyway...I got LOTS OF LOVE for this particular muffin tin collection because of something SO simple. I cut the pb&j into the shape of a HEART! You'd have thought it was made of gold. Three was SUPER excited, and said "I love, love, love, love, LOVE you!"

:)

Other items in our tin: pretzels, applesauce, green peas, peaches and marshmallows. If I had thought about it before last night...I would have tried to put together an all green theme in honor of our frog week, but alas...sometimes I'm just flying by the seat of my pants!

Frogs

Frog paper bag puppets, because Three has thrown it down that "We *never* make puppets." Oh yeah...take that.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/puppets/paperbag/

I printed out frog coloring pages (you can google it.) Look at google images and noted the wide variety of colors frogs can come in, and then color the pic.

Discuss where you would find frogs, and where you find those beautiful colored frogs we find on google images. Map printouts are your friend.

Print out the life cycle of a frog, and go over it. Print out a 2nd one, and cut it into separate cards to be placed in the correct order.

Focus on the letter F....seriously, Three has a mental block about this letter, so we keep visiting it. Someday.

You could do color mixing here as well: blue/yellow to make green frogs.

Rhyme: Five Speckled Frogs! (I love this rhyme...shhh don't tell.)

Lily Pad craft: I cut out a green circle, used a coffee filter and let them paint the middle (or all of it in Three's case) yellow. After the coffee filter dries, glue the flower onto the lily pad. These turned out cute.

And, we may do the tadpole craft from notimeforflashcards (one of my FAVORITE sites): http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/category/frogs There are other good ideas, you should check it out. :)

Community Helpers

Firefighters, Police, Construction worker, Mail Carrier, Veterinarian

Nursery Rhyme: Ladybug, Ladybug Fly Away Home

Police Craft: Cut out badge shape from cardboard. Cover with aluminum foil. Use the handle part of the paintbrush to "draw" on the badge.

Discuss what police do--speed limit signs, stop signs, litter laws, etc.

Construction worker craft: make a safety vest out of paper bag;

Build with blocks in the "construction zone"

Firefighter craft: Paint a fire-red/orange/yellow paint, add a cut out of a house.

Draw flames with sidewalk chalk, use hose (or spray bottles) to put out the flames.

Tour the local firestation

Mail carrier craft: http://familycrafts.about.com/od/potatochipandpeanutcans/a/Pringles-Can-Mailbox-Craft.htm

Cut out mailbox shapes put a letter/number/shape on each mailbox. Make an envelope and put the matching/corresponding item on the envelope. Have child match them up.

Mail something!

Veterinarian:

Pretend play "vet" with stuffed animals.

Community Helpers Puzzle: Create this (if you don't have one) by printing a coloring page, color it, and then cut it into pieces for your child to put back together. If you have a laminator, or access to one, laminate the page prior to cutting it.

Math Skills: We'll use the blocks on our building day to make some patterns. We'll also make towers and count the blocks (we are working on higher numbers.)

Four will be learning the color red, and we'll work on matching. I'm going to make a "color red box." A color box is a school supply box (like a stiff cardboard pencil box) and I will put various RED things from around the house in it for him to discover. We'll look at the box each day.

Another project I'd like to complete this week is a color match wheel. You cut out a cardboard circle, paint sections of the circle in different colors. Paint clothespins to match. Have child pinch the clothespin to clip it on to the matching spot on the circle. I plan on doing this 2 times. One with just 4 colors (for Four) and one with more colors (for Three.)