Parts of the Pumpkin

To go along with the parts of the pumpkin 3 part cards, I always try to dissect a pumpkin at group time. The children enjoy matching the parts they are exploring to the cards. This is also a great time to separate out the seeds for roasting (or to save to make works with)!

Thanksgiving Feast Place Mat

Each year in addition to our daily family style lunch (each family brings lunch for a week and we eat family style daily) we have a Thanksgiving Feast.  The lucky family who gets that week get's to bring at the Turkey Day Fixings!
To make it extra special the kids each make their own place mat. Below is the tray with all the supplies.  These include short and long strips of paper (for the place mat boarder) dried and pressed leaves, different colored large square, rectangle, and triangle shaped paper  I use all fall colored/themed paper and it's all geared to fit a standard 9x12 piece of construction paper.

 Here is one being assembled

 The children choose the construction paper base they want as well as all the different choices of shapes.

Here is a finished product!  They all turn out different and depending on the size of their hand, you can sometimes trace both hands.

I will laminate them all to use at our feast and then they can take them home to use for their own!

Leaf Rubbing

This is a fun and simple leaf rubbing project that is easy to pull out every year.  I dried and pressed an assortment of leaves then glued them around a 8 1/2 piece of paper- carefully placing them where the poem wording would not be.  I then laminated it.

I printed out the Autumn Leaves poem.  (Print out multiple copies of this for the shelf)

Paperclip all four corners onto the laminated copy and rub with the flat side of the crayon.

 It looks great every time and you can really see the stems and the veins of the leaves- which the children are almost always sure to point out!

Oak Tree Art

This is a really fun, 3 dimensional art project using mostly natural materials.  We have an Oak tree at our school so gathering the acorns was easy!  We put them in our dehydrator overnight to dry them out.

I got the oak leaf punch at Michaels.  The trunks (thicker pieces of wood) and the branches (the thinner pieces) I gathered off the playground with the kids.

They first cut the grass by making "snips" in the green paper.

Then they use tacky glue to shape their tree.  I had them lay the trunk and the branches out first then glue it on the cardboard backing.

Add the acorns (with tacky glue) and the leaves (regular school glue works for this)

These look very cute hung up in our classroom!

Fall Mystery Bag Items

The mystery bag is one of my favorite works in the classroom and it also seems to be one that can be forgotten about as the year goes on.  To keep it inviting, I try and switch out the items each month or so and relate it to the current unit study or holiday.  These are the items that were in it for November.  It was used often!

Sunflower Tweezing

We have many sunflowers around our area this time of year including in our garden at school!  For our lifecycle study this year we are doing a week on sunflowers.  These ones were right from our garden!  We've been reading many books about sunflowers, their lifecycle, and how they provide food for birds in the fall (which we've been observing on our playground).  

For this lesson I read this book which has great pictures and goes along in a rhythmic rhyme similar to 'The House That Jack Built".  Very engaging for all and it tells the story of the sunflowers life and shows birds eating the seeds and then dropping some which grow more!  The lifecycle!

 I showed them this one first.  This is out of our garden on the plaground picked clean from the birds!

 Then we gently scraped off all the tiny flowers from the sunflower head to reveal the seeds!  Each child had a turn with this at circle and it is quite fun to do!

Now it is ready to go on the shelf for them to tweeze the seeds out of the sunflower head one at a time!  This child had an audience around her watching in Awe!  The magnifying glass is fun for them to have a closer look at the seeds and the hole it came from!  Of course, they love this!

Parts of the Sunflower

I am a big fan of the 3 part card activities and make multiple kinds of them for every unit, theme, or holiday we study!  You can find pretty much any black lined master online and it's such a great way for the kids to learn so many different concepts.  Making their own book is always a great take home work too!

This is for my sunflower unit and if you want the master just email me and I'll send it to you!

Pumpkin Chalkboard

This idea came from my friend Tiffany.  The first year I did it I got one of the artificial pumpkins from Michaels that's round (solid- like a pumpkin).  I found it tricky for them to draw on it.  Last year I found this.  It was also at Michaels and it's made out of balsa wood.  I spray painted it with chalkboard paint and I think I used 2 coats.

 It's a great art work to have out so early in the year.  Simple, clean, and fun! 

Acorn Tonging

For October it's so fun to have themed practical life and so easy too with all the items you can find at craft and party stores!  My director picked up this glass acorn container at Michaels. 

 The school already had the wooden acrons that are inside and they fit perfectly on this pallette 

0-10 Acorn Counting

With the beginning of the school year approaching, ideas of new works are popping in to my head!  This was super easy to make.  The acorn leaf paper I've had for years.. It was given to me by a former co-worker.  It was actually a tablet of paper.  I used my number stickers and laminated the paper.  I got the acorns at Michaels. 

It will take at least 2 bags of the acrons (they were $3.99 each but remember your coupon!)  There are two different sizes of acorns in the bag  and I wanted them to be all the same size.  After taking count when I got home, I found I was 5 short.  But thankfully I just happend to have some extras in my Thanksgiving box from last year to make 55.  Love it when that happens!

Here's a close up

Now I just need to decide if I should put them out in September, October, or November!