Fall

It is finally fall! I have been waiting all summer, but sadly the weather forgot to change. We have had record highs this week, so maybe it was a little early to teach the kids about leaves changing. Maybe once October arrives it will start acting like Fall around here.

I do Tot School twice a week for my 2 year old, and I add in things that are more appropriate for my 4 year old as well.  This ends up being a mixture of Tot School and Preschool.  I love how excited my son gets when I say it is time for school every Tuesday and Thursday. I am also going to start using tot trays (as seen here), because E's naps are getting shorter and shorter. I usually do K4 with my daughter while he is napping, but it would be nice to do school in the morning so I am hoping that providing him with some hands on activities will make this possible.

Day 1
We started by reading a few books about Fall...Welcome Fall, Autumn Leaves, and we read about the Fall months in The Year At Maple Hill Farm.   After reading we played a game where the kids acted like leaves.  I prompted them to fall from the tree (kneel), then blanket the ground (lay down), then the wind came up (get up), and the wind blew the leaves around (dance around).  They both loved doing this, and I wish I had taken pictures!  K loves to be the teacher, so even I got to be a leaf a few times.  When we were done being leaves, I had the kids make fall headbands.  I cut four 1.5" strips of yellow construction paper, and gave them each two strips.  They decorated the strips with foam leaf stickers (these were left over from Thanksgiving, so there are some turkeys in there too), and I stapled the strips together after measuring their heads.  E kept checking himself out in the mirror, and wore it all day.

 

Day 2
On our second day, we read Why Do Leaves Change Colors? and Round and Round the Seasons Go.  We changed the season to Fall on our calendar.  Yeah! 

Next we played Busy Squirrel.  I'm not sure how fallish this game is, but I saw this in a Mailbox magazine that I had and I thought my kids would like it.  I hid construction paper acorns all around our loft for my two little "squirrels" to find.  E is not quite ready for this sort of thing, but he had fun following around his sister and finding the acorns.  K was being really sweet, and was showing him where they were so he could pick them up too.  

 To wrap up our first week of Fall, we colored this Fall picture.