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!

Art Time with the Boys

Painting Activity Prep

This year we are doing Adventures in My Fathers World, included in that is “I Can Do All Things” art lesson book.  We did assignments out of there to start off our homeschool week.  The lessons are good but it starts out with coloring and drawing and my boys were dying to paint something.  So I headed over to Pinterest and searched for Kids Painting, got so many great results but one piqued my interest.  It was a paper with swirls, dots, waves and stripes.  I thought it would be a perfect, easy and fun lesson with the boys. The original post is here at Be a Fun Mum.

I set the table up while they were all on break.  I usually have them share paint and brushes but that never turns out the way I imagine it can.  This time, everyone got their own palette and a variety of brushes.

I asked them to watch me paint the different items and then told them they could make any kind of painting they wanted as long as they used dots, stripes, waves and swirls.

Mommy's Sample Paintingmommy’s sample

They liked being able to have freedom with their painting, I liked that they actually incorporated the items into their creations.

Painting with swirls, dots, waves and stripesOliver painting the Solar System

Painting with swirls, dots, waves and stripesPreston creating a Robot

Adam and Olivers Creations (Kindergarten)Adam’s is ocean waves, fish “and the red part is a force field” -lol

Samuels (preschool)Samuel immediately mixes all his colors up and made this masterpiece

Preston's Robot Creation (2nd grade)Preston’s Robot (sideways)

This was fun!  I even got in on the action, what a blast!  Thanks to “Be A Fun Mum“!

 

Fun with Shaving Cream

fun with shaving creamRecently I discovered another amazing blog!  This one is called Meet the Dubiens.  I have seen so many things on this blog that I want to do with my kids.  Very inspiring!

Our first inspiration we did today.  She mixed food coloring with shaving cream and used it as paint for her kids bath time.

We did not make it for bathtime, just craft time.  I let them play at their little table and gave them some utensils.

I do wish I would have had primary colors, Oliver was mixing colors and discovering new colors, would have been more effective with primary colors.

I am still trying to use up the neon colors I used for Oliver’s Rainbow Cake.

The boys had fun for about 1 hour, record time for my 3 and 5 year olds.

Oliver playing

colored shaving cream

Woody in the shaving cream

pretty green shave cream

Olivers Mixing Tray

tie dyed shaving cream

Next time:  More tools and Primary Colors.

FUN:  YES!

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!

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