Lesson Theme: Fall!

Taking my cue from kids and piles of leaves during the fall, I am just going to jump right in with we've been working on...

A quick lesson in pointillism.  Miss A worked on this over several days so as not to grow bored with it - pointillism can require a good deal of care and patience.  It was worth the wait - I LOVE how this turned out!

I'd also seen the cutest craft where the person used puzzle pieces for autumn leaves on a tree!  I decided to make our own version using a watercolor background and a branch heavy with leaves waiting for the first strong wind to send them tumbling to the ground.

We made three of these - examining how the changes in light during the day make the leaf colors appear slightly different depending on the time of day...

Here's a tree branch with autumn leaves in the full bright sun of the day...

Here's the same branch at sunset (notice the more muted yellow tone)...

And here is the branch at night - the yellow much darker...

Among the many different fall books available for reading is a treasure we read titled "Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic".  I LOVE this book and highly recommend buying it (link below) or getting it from the library.  It is a book rich with the language and images of the season.

It was a challenge for us to make an acrostic of our own but we did!  Actually, Miss A did much of it, and I helped with harder letters like "U" where we looked up words that started with "U" and then chose one we could work with.  

After coming up with our own acrostic for the season, Miss A illustrated it (notice it is a fall NIGHT picture).

We also practiced our new spelling words!  Miss A would write a spelling word, count up the letters in that word, make up a math sentence to equal that number, show the math sentence using fall leaf cut-outs, and then write it out using numbers.

This was a sorting math sentences activity.  I wrote incomplete number sentences on leaves and placed them in a pile on the paper between the two baskets.  Miss A had to complete the sentences and sort the leaves into the appropriate baskets.

This was a whimsical bit of fall leaf yarn art.  I printed a picture of a leaf, taped wax paper over it and we worked together to dip yarn in a glue solution (mostly glue and a little bit of water to thin it out) and apply it to the outline of the leaf (sometimes having to add straight glue to make it stick better).

We also used yarn to add her initial to the center of the leaf.  Once dry, I pulled it off the wax paper (it was VERY stiff), and hung it up!  :)

Does this little wooden doll family look familiar?  They should since I posted about a photography and makeover session with them recently!  ;)

The Autumn family (as I named them), joined us for the week in a little bin full of colorful bits of fall!  Miss A and Mr. J have been enjoying them quite a bit!

BTW - this was incredibly INexpensive to make.  The apple trees are made from cut apart and painted paper towel rolls and construction paper.  The apples are red pom poms with velcro attached so they can be "picked" from the tree.  The baskets are cut up painted egg carton pieces.  The leaves are made from construction paper using a leaf punch I have.  The rakes are pieces of a thin cardboard box that I cut up and painted.  And the ground pieces are felt.  The dolls are available here and are very inexpensive as well!

So what fun fall activities have you been up to lately?

Linking up:
www.cornerstoneconfessions.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.handsonaswegrow.com
www.tatertotsandjello.com
www.sunscholars.com