Yesterday we went to March Farm and had a BLAST picking apples. There was seriously not a single person there, so we took a very long time in the orchard. First, we started off by tasting the different types of apples, and noticing which ones were sweet vs sour. Then of course we were comparing colors of the apples, and the color of the apple tree leaves vs the color of the leaves around us. Just for fun, I had them figure out what tree was the tallest in the row vs which ones were the shortest. Pierce then lined up the dead fall and told me which was the biggest and the smallest. This of course led to Carter doing the same thing. On the way out of the orchard we stopped by the pumpkin patch, where we learned about how some pumpkins can be bumpy, white, small, and big. Pierce also noticed that the pumpkin leaves looked like squash leaves that we had in our garden. Carter was also enthralled by the vines still being connected to the pumpkins.
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| This is what happens when you ask my 3 1/2 year old to smile... |
Later yesterday afternoon we went to our buddies house to finish doing our "school" for the day. I am now understanding what home school moms and dads mean by the term deschooling, or decompressing. Everything I do with these boys is a learning experience. I'm not going to stop planning my day, since there are certainly activities I want to accomplish per unit. But it is so nice to have that flexibility of only doing 2 things in the morning, and then doing the rest in the afternoon when their friends are available. It is so much easier on them as well. Plus, with them napping, I swear it gives them a chance to process what they have learned in the morning before we move on to other things. Anyhow, sorry about that ramble, we had a blast playing with the scented play dough and fall themed cookie cutters. We spoke about colors, smells, textures, and for a couple of the younger guys, taste. Then we made some fall trees by gluing tree trunks onto white paper, and using corks to create the leaves. At least that was the intention; it certainly turned into finger painting, and honestly they came out awesome. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures, since I spaced out and did not take pictures. Oops!
Today we started our day by taking some counting chips and putting them into the top of a container and practicing picking up with only 2 fingers. Much to my surprise, this activity entertained both boys long enough to get laundry done. Yippee! Since we have the transparent ones, it also allowed the boys to put one chip over the other to create different colors. That is the part that Pierce loved the most.
After story time and naps, we went outside to start raking leaves. Without them knowing, I had hidden foam pumpkins in the leaves that had the alphabet written on them. Both boys were delighted by the various foam pumpkins everywhere. The only hard part was that Carter did not want to come out of his corn pit to find them (I even had to bring the corn pit up from the backyard to the front, since he would not leave it). Pierce solved this issue by finding the pumpkins, telling me what the letters were, and then giving it to Carter to figure it out. Carter knew "C" and "F", which absolutely surprised me. We stayed out there for a few hours raking piles of leaves to jump in, and Pierce even helped by hauling some of the leaves into the woods with his tractor.
Now it is bedtime in our house, and my awesome husband is doing bedtime for me so that I can update this. :) I am utterly exhausted, since the boys have not been sleeping well at all lately, and I am honestly thinking about going to bed at 7:30 pm myself. Hope everyone is having an awesome week, and I will update more on the weekend. Tomorrow is our last official day of fall learning, so we are going to do some sensory bottles.
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