A New Season

It actually FEELS like fall today. Since yesterday was officially the first day of fall, I decided some fall activities were in order. We collected some leaves (tried to find various shapes and sizes) and made rubbings of them. Just put the leaf under a sheet of paper and take an old crayon that doesn't have a label anymore and started rubbing over the leaves. Everybody has crayons like that, right? Right?

So then we tried to label the leaves. Uh...beyond pine needles I was kind of at a loss. So we looked them up (I knew we had oak in the front and was fairly certain we had some type of maple tree in our back yard) and found out it is kind of difficult to "name that tree." Especially just from the leaves. There are so many varieties of trees out there. Oh yes, and how do I know our oak trees are "pin" oaks? Well, that comes from the simple fact that when we moved in 6 years ago that was the worst year for "pin oak mites." Those little suckers were everywhere. So much so that we couldn't even be outside. Another story.


Another fall activity is a little fall poem I came across. My boys love anything with actions and this poem isn't lacking.

Red and yellow, green and brown
(count off colors on fingers)
Leaves are falling to the ground
(wiggle your fingers as you drop your hands to the floor)
We pile them up OH SO HIGH
(pile pretend leaves with hands)
Then we jump in
(pretend to jump)
My dog and I!

Just a little fun for your preschooler. We don't have a dog, but as this is just pretend anyway, no biggie! :)

I'm going to try to put together a fall "sensory box" this weekend and I'll blog about that soon. Basically, you just take a shoe box, cut a hole in the top, fill it with bits of fall (acorns, small apples, sticks, anything you can think of!) and your kids can have fun by sticking their hand in the box and trying to guess what they are feeling. I know that my boy is going to immediately pull out whatever he grasps in the box, so it might take a few times to get the hang of it. :)

Have a great weekend!