Leaves!

 It's Fall!!  My favorite part is seeing the leaves change colors.  It reminds me of my wedding day!  So, needless to say we learned about leaves/fall this week.

After talking about what happens to leaves in the fall, we went on a fall walk to see if we could find leaves in all different shapes and colors.  Here they are with their bags ready to go!

 

 Pretty sad, but this is the ONLY tree in our yard, and as you can see....it's still green.  We weren't going to get very far with our one tree so we walked through the neighborhood down to the park where there are, well, more trees.

Stopping for berries along the way from our neighbors tree

Just what I was hoping to find!  Beautiful orange and red leaves from this tree at the park..

 We took our leaves home and dumped them on the table to see what colors and types of leaves we found.  We also got out the magnifying glasses to explore them a little closer.

 

Using contact paper and craft sticks, we made little leaf hangings so they could display their findings...

 (excuse the 'oranginess' of these photos....totally wasn't viewing my pictures to see if my settings were off....just kept on snapping)

 

Hang it in a window and ta da.  Now they can be reminded of God's creation and how everything he makes is uniquely beautiful!

 

Apple lesson (part 2)

It is apple season!  And we finished up last week with another lesson on apples.  I picked a few fun crafts and activities I thought the kiddos would enjoy and I hope you do to.....

For our craft, I found this cute idea here

 Again, couldn't take pictures during the project but here's the after pictures. 

My kids love to help cook, so I like to plan time for them to do just that.  I had seen an idea on pinterest to make individual little apple pies using crescent rolls.  Sounded yummy to me!

Can't get that boy to just smile anymore....he thinks this is the funniest pose ever!  LOL

 

 Here they are spreading melted butter on the crescent roll, sprinkling on some cinnamon, and rolling up an apple slice inside.

Ta Da!

 

Here's the after baked photo.  They were pretty good considering we didn't even add any sugar to it!

I got out our foam craft sticks while I cleaned up snack messes.  They used the sticks to build shapes and letters

We played "hot apple" and if they had the apple when the music stopped they had to answer a question about apples (where do they grow?  what's inside? what can you make with  them? etc)  This probably works better in a large group setting where you can actually pass the apple around in a circle without everyone's hands already on it.  haha

And finally...they now know all there is to know about apples!! (At least at a 2&3 yr old level).  So they earned an apple tattoo.  Here they are showing it off.....

No more dirty chairs

Finally we have clean dining room chairs!  We no longer have to be  completely embarrassed or bring up new chairs for our guests to sit in just so they don't have to sit on this......

 And this......

 Yes, totally gross, disgusting, stained beyond help chair pads.  When we would apologize for this disaster and offer a different chair, most people just laughed (and then willingly accepted a new chair), my mom friends sympathized and to family it just became the norm.  But you know it's bad when other KIDS come over and don't even want to sit in 'those chairs'.  

How did they get this way you ask?........................

AND......................

 

Yep, as cute as they are those little boogers can make any meal a mess and will use anything (yes anything including a chair pad) as a napkin.

It was really just their chairs that were beyond disgusting, but when you change one, you might as well change them all so they match.

So, we ripped off the seat cushions and got to work.................

 

 We didn't get too funky with our material although we had hoped to something more fun and bright.  We found a lot of cool fabric that we really liked, but it was either way more $$ than we wanted to spend or it wasn't meant for upholstery.  So, we stuck with the basic boring beige.  A little darker than what we had, but we stain guarded the heck out of them this time.  

 Wow, you're impressed I can do this right?  I mean this required screwdrivers, nail guns and a power drill.  Well, I have a secret weapon...........

 Yep, that's my hubs who can fix or repair just about anything!  Best thing is, he likes to help with things like this and has a way better eye for detail than I do.  I did do a few staples with the gun just so I could say I've used a staple gun, but most of the work I can't take credit for.

Here's the final project.  A new, clean chair pad.  Not to exciting, but not dirty either!  The whole project cost us less than $20 which was exciting though!

First day of preschool- Take 2

We're back at Preschool on Mondays at our house!  I love teaching this age.  I love how learning is fun and they love to learn!  Like most preschools, we began with a lesson in APPLES.  I've added and changed a few things from last year but have the same little cuties. 

 I had to take a 'first day' picture of  course

 

And if you make them take a nice picture, chances are they are going to make you take a silly picture too.....

      

One thing I have added this year, is writing numbers.  We started with good ol' #1 today...nice and easy for even little Emma to do on her own.  I found a little poem that says "Straight line down and then you're done, that's the way we make a ONE"  

So here is their own 'Ones" on their dry erase boards..............

Our story to go with our Apple theme was "Ten Apples Up on Top"  We talked about how silly and hard it would be to walk around with 10 apple on our head.  We got out an apple and tried to walk while balancing just one apple on our head.    Not easy to do!

And then of course an apple snack.  Apples with Peanut butter and apple juice.  We talked about the different parts of the apple and cut it open to find the seeds.

 Then this fun little craft.  I could only take an 'after' picture because my hands were covered in red paint 'during'.  It says "How many apples up on top?"  We glued a picture of them at the bottom of the paper and then stamped an apple in red paint and counted how many apples we could put on top of our picture.  Note:  Apple stamping works much better if you can actually cut the apple perfectly straight.....otherwise your stamps turn out funky like ours :(

 

Then some letter and number tracing.  On a piece of paper I wrote a "1" and "one" and on the other side an "A" and "a".  Slip it inside a sheet protector and voila an instant traceable dry erase page.

 That's all for today.  We will be doing a few more apple things next week too :)