Kick-Off: Let Fall School Projects Begin

Love this time of year!  Who doesn’t, really?  I think I write about it every year, unlike the other seasons.  Just something about the Fall.  It officially starts today, yay!  Thought we would kick off the many, many Fall activities we will be doing this season, so excited!  We started by doing a leaf study.  I purchased this really cool kit from the Used Curriculum sale at my local Homeschool Convention.

Leaf Kit - Science activityThe kit includes many samples of leafs, each in their own plastic sleeve and label.  The Tree Finder book has every kind of tree you can find in North America, comes with illustrations and descriptions.  The workbook, guides you through lessons on trees and all their parts.  Yesterday I let the boys look through everything in the kit.  We will start the lessons on Monday.

The next project we worked on was leaf rubbings as seen here on Pinterest, which is where I saw it.  It is originally posted on this blog.

leaves We collected leaves from around our neighborhood.

leavespretty leaves.

Then we taped the paper down to the table with masking tape.  We used crayons that had the labels taken off so we could rub properly.  I stressed to the boys the importance of holding the bottom of the paper tight once they placed their leaves under the it.

Olivers Leaf Rubbings

Olivers Leaf Rubbings

Adams Leaf Rubbings

After the leaf rubbings we read 2 books about Fall.  One is a family favorite about all seasons but it seems best for Fall it is called The Acorn and the Oak Tree.  The other book, of course, was Clifford’s Leaf Season.  All in all, this was a great start to celebrate my favorite season.

acorn and the oak

Happy Fall!

Summer Centers

We love centers!  I used them throughout the past school year for all 3 boys.  Some structured some as free-play.  The boys are always happy to pull them out and play with them it is a guaranteed 30 minutes of constructive play.

For the Summer I reorganized them, rearranged and grouped different things together to get the boys geared up for summer indoor activities.

I put everything in one cabinet thanks to my sister who gave me a nice white cabinet.  Thanks Tia!

our Centers cabinet

Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks and BoardsMelissa and Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards

Styrofoam shapesStyrofoam shapes – Good for Math, Sorting and Building

math manipulatives10 Base T  set – great for Math and Building

Random toolsRandom Tools (thanks Liv for the Magnifying glasses)

treasure huntColored rice, items are buried, fun!

Math ManipulativesGreat for Math, Sorting, Building and Art

 Geoboard
it’s also a Geoboard!

shape blocksshapes

shape blocksfor building

robotsLearning Robots, Phonics and Math

Concentrationtravel size Concentration game

Card shufflercard shuffler

One happy boyOne Happy Boy!

Remember These?

Felt Storyboard

I have such fond memories of watching my teacher use a felt board to tell a story.  LOVED it so much.  Gathering around her and finding a comfy spot to watch the story unfold.

Always wanted to get some to play with as a kid but never did, seemed like a teacher “exclusive” item.

I looked at my local Education store and they are so expensive I could not justify the cost.

However, now that I started to homeschool I went to my favorite consignment sale to find educational materials.  Imagine how excited I was to find a Storyboard Felt set.

Nothing fancy, in fact it looks like it could be from when I was little, but it is in excellent shape.  I bet they came from a former teacher.  I practically let out a squeel like a 13 year old who sees Justin Bieber.

This has to be one of my best finds ever!

I let the 4 and 2 year old play with them and they loved it.  The two year went through all the animals and tried to make their “sounds”.  It was fun, now I need to come up with a story!

Felt Storyboard

Felt Storyboard

Easy Tie Dye Shirts

I have always loved tie-dyed shirts, loved them.  Bright bursts of color splashed on a sparkling white tee.  Pretty!  I have wanted to make one for ever but just felt like it would be hard.  Until recently.

I came across a spray bottled tie dye kit, it looked easy enough so I had to try it.

tumble dye

Tumble Dye

We bought 3 white tee’s for only $3 a piece!  The kit was 7.99.

We twisted and rubber-banded the shirts then sprayed the tie dye all over, set to dry…

Tumble Dye

drying

we let dry 24 hours…

Tumble Dye

pretty!

When we took the bands off there was still alot of white so we re-banded it and sprayed some more tie dye on, dried some more… then to the dryer for 15 minutes…

Tumble Dye Shirts

the boys

The boys would NOT cooperate for pictures, but I can’t really blame them – 60 degrees in January!  Hope you can see the shirts…

Oliver

Oliver

Some more…

Preston

Preston

Overall cost – $20, not bad for 3 Super-Cool shirts!

the boys

playing in their new shirts

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