Theme: Autumn
Honey Pot is 2 years and 5 months old
Little M&M is 7 months old
Books
We borrowed a few books from our library about autumn, and
read them throughout the week. Here is what we got:
Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic – by Steven Schnur
Clifford The Big Red Dog: The Big Leaf Pile – by
Josephine Page
Every Autumn Comes The Bear – by Jim Arnosky
Felt Board – Autumn Tree
I finally did it – I made a felt board! I just used a piece
of flannel and a poster frame. The sheets of felt from Michaels stick well to
it. So for our first felt activity, I cut out a bare tree and leaves in yellow,
orange and red.
When Honey Pot woke up the next morning, she went right over
to it and played with it.
“It’s a leaf!”
We returned to it throughout the week for random play,
arranging the leaves in various ways.
Later in the week, we also used it for math practice! Keep
scrolling to see how we did that!
Leaf Crowns
These are all over, but I found my inspiration from Heart Felt. First we went for a walk so that Honey Pot and I could
gather some leaves.
And you never know when you’ll happen upon some alphabet
practice! Look what she found on the street. She identified the ‘H’ and the ‘I’
perfectly.
When we got home we spread them out on her craft table,
along with two strips of paper and some glue.
Honey Pot squeezed some glue out all over the paper.
Then she chose some leaves, and pressed them down onto the
glue.
When they dried, we put them on and acted like royalty. Here
is Edward the elephant modeling my crown…
And Honey Pot wearing hers:
The next day we took them back out again for more play. They
had started to get crinkly and old so we threw them away after this.
Baby Play
I wanted Little M&M to experience our autumn theme too.
But real leaves aren’t really safe for him, as he puts everything in his mouth.
I have two strands of fake leaves that we use for seasonal décor, so I decided
to break one apart for him. He enjoyed exploring this new texture in their fall
hues.
And one thing I emphasize to Honey Pot is how some leaves
fall off of the trees in autumn, so I threw them up in the air to fall on
Little M&M too. lol.
Leaf Cookies
On Pinterest I had come across this fun project from Country Living, where you tint the cookie dough with fall colors and then piece the
dough back together again. Honey Pot was a huge help cutting out the cookies
into leaf shapes!
Here they are about to go into the oven. I’m afraid I forgot
to take an after picture!
Shaving Cream Painting
I have seen this painting method all over, but take a look
at this wonderful result from Little Wonders Days. First I cut out leaf shapes
from cardstock, and squirted some paint into shaving cream.
Then Honey Pot swirled the paints around with a toothpick.
She placed a leaf into the paint…
And lifted it up…
Now this was my first shaving cream painting, so I was a
little confused as to which gizmo to use to wipe the shaving cream away. We
tried two methods: a sponge and then a food scraper. I love how the previous
looks, but I’m fairly certain the latter is the way to go to get the marble look. Here though,
the food scraper leaves aren't as vibrant, because those leaves went into the
paint swirl second. Next time, I’ll do that first and I think we’ll get a great
result as Little Wonders Days got!
And while you wait for your leaves to dry, feel free to
stack up your supplies and “build a castle” because that seems to be the thing
to do!
Leaf Banner
We wanted to put our pretty leaves on display, so I decided
to make a banner out of it. We were able to add in some letter recognition and
super fine motor skills too! First I wrote the letters in the word “AUTUMN” on
the leaves. Then I let Honey Pot match up some letter cutouts onto their
corresponding leaves. We identified each letter along the way.
Then I used a hole punch to make a hole in each leaf, and
Honey Pot threaded a piece of string through them. She did awesome!
Here it is on display on our fireplace. The letters are hard
to see; I had let Honey Pot choose which color letters to use, and
unfortunately she chose a light one! Still very cute, and now we can enjoy her
craft all season long.
Felt Board – Autumn Tree Math
I cut out some numbers from felt, and made a counting game
for Honey Pot’s felt board. I chose a number and placed it next to the bare
tree. Then I asked her to identify the number, helping her with the ones she didn't know. And then she placed that number of leaves onto the tree.
Happy autumn!
