Fall Traditions and Celebrations - Linking Up With The Homeschool Village

Today I'm linking up to The Homeschool Village to share ways we celebrate Fall in our homeschool.

What I love about this season is that it has forced me to be intentional about fun, educational activities.

Other than Advent, Fall is my favorite time of the year. Despite the fact that it was nearly 80 degrees here today, the leaves are changing, the yard is littered with leaves, and we are making fall recipes and getting ready for Halloween.

At our front door, the topiary has orange lights (I change the lights for each season), the mums are out, and all we need are the kids and some friends standing by the door dressed in costumes! My husband and I aren't usually the type to dress up for Halloween, but the kids love it and I happily pass out candy while my husband takes them around the neighborhood.

Since we have been homeschooling, holidays take on a whole new meaning for our family - we approach everything from a learning standpoint, and I love it! This week we have learned some classical music that goes along with Halloween, and the kids have also done some fun pumpkin activities. Our favorite book is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything - and it provides a lot of fun activities, too.

Earlier this week the kids made fall tissue paper trees out of their hand/arm tracings.

My sweet Miss B added a Bible verse to her picture about having the faith of a mustard seed. Sometimes the insight of my children is humbling.

We also made Owl S'Mores, which were a HUGE hit!

Yesterday we went on a fall nature scavenger hunt - I found a cute list online for us and we had a great time. At the end of our walk we spotted a blue heron (I neglected to get a picture because we were so excited!), but it was the highlight of the day, that's for sure!

Oh - a friend that is here each fall is our big SPIDER -- he was a gift to me from my mom my first year of teaching public school, so he has been gracing my house for the past 17 years! I think he's held up very well -- and some years we had to put him away because he scared a little one, but now everyone loves him!

This weekend we will get our pumpkin and daddy will carve it with the kids. Halloween night we are having friends come to dinner and then everyone will head out for trick or treating. We'll be sad when this season is over, but then we prepare for a house FULL of people at Thanksgiving, so we will be on to the next adventure and season of blessings.

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All About Pumpkins!

I read about this activity at My Montessori Journey - when I saw that I already owned the book, I knew I could adapt this project for my five year old son. We just love this book!

Before we read the book I sang my favorite pumpkin song -- Pick A Pumpkin:

Pick a Pumpkin

Pick-a, Pick-a pumpkin from the pile

We can make his eyes and a great big smile!

Pick-a pick-a pumpkin round and clean

Then we’ll be ready for Halloween.

Halloween! Halloween!

Then we’ll be ready for Halloween!

You can make up your own tune to the song, or even just use it as a little poem - there is something about it that kids really enjoy.

I read the book, then went back over the life cycle of the pumpkin. Then, I gave my son the sheets I had downloaded and printed from here and asked him to color them, cut them, and arrange them in order on the black 12x12 paper. Here's what he came up with - I was really proud of him!

Tomorrow we will be cutting and putting together the mini book of "Five Little Pumpkins" - I still remember this rhyme from my childhood! Happy Pumpkins!

This post is linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop - I love this Tuesday link-up! Go see what everyone is up to this week.

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A Quick, Fun Art Project

My poor children were dragged through Hobby Lobby last week for over an hour - while I was picking some decorations for a party we had last weekend. In an attempt to keep them engaged and happy, I told them we could pick an art activity for this week - something that would cost less than $5 for each of them. Once we got to the aisle with all of the wood crafts they started to brainstorm, and decided they should make door hangers for their rooms. I was pleased at how it all turned out, with very little help from me!

I really loved the wood capital letters they chose - and a huge bag of them was $1.99! They have adhesive on the back and we can use them for lots of other projects, too.

While this didn't coincide with any of our curriculum, and it's not a "fall" craft, I just love the fact that my children chose the activity and did it without my help. I love it that we have time to be creative, and I love that they worked together and agreed on the project. Oh, and sticking to the $5 budget was a good lesson as well.

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