This week is unbe-leaf-ably full of leaves.
BOOK OF THE DAY AND STEAM ACTIVITY
Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter by Kenard Pak
To explore other seasons today we focused a little more on winter and spring. Seasons seem to be a bit more challenging than weather to teach. Maybe that’s because it’s a slow progression of the seasons through the year, rather than how weather can change quickly. Or maybe it’s because here in southern Idaho summer is all like “Ok, I’m going away now. Sike! I’m back. Nope, I’m leaving. LOL JK.” And then fall comes all week long and then “Hey guys! How’d you like some more 80 degree weather?!”. Que palm to face.
Anyways, we did this fun STEAM project where we got to build birds nests and it was a great little engineering geared project.
STEAM Bird’s Nests
Supplies Needed
- twigs
- leaves
- long grass
- yarn
- thin strips of scratch paper
- toilet paper rolls
- plastic easter eggs
With this activity you can pretty much use whatever you can find outside or extra scraps from your craft closet. Think like a bird. Our toilet paper rolls became our tree branches. We wrapped bundles of sticks in yarn and formed a semi roundish shape. Then we piled it and stuffed it with bits of paper and leaves and were able to balance a few eggs in there. We tried again, this time we placed the toilet paper rolls closer together and Lane stuck sticks in them. We used more sticks to lay across the top and again stuffed it full of stuff.
SING-A-LONG
My Alphabet by Richard Scarry
HANDS ON LEARNING AND WORKSHEET
Flashcards and Picture Association
To understand seasons a little better, I wanted to use family pictures. I think this helped Lane associate his own memories with the idea of seasons and weather patterns throughout the year. I made four collages, one for each season. While he chatted about what we were doing in each picture, I explained why we do these things in certain seasons.
Then we laid these on a table and I pulled out a deck of flashcards with various season themed pictures. I asked him what each picture was and if he knew what season we did or used this in and placed the flashcard on the correct collage. He understood some but when he was stumped I explained to him which season it went to and why.
We moved onto another velcro matching activity today. Instead of the Dressed For The Weather one with 3 different weather cards that we did last week, this one included 4 cards for spring, summer, autumn and winter and relative mix and match pictures. We had to make time for a coloring page too. This one a grove of trees with room to color the leaves of all seasons.
Click here for the trees through the seasons coloring page.
Click here for the season flashcards.
CRAFT CORNER
Today’s craft is one I plan to carry over to other lessons. As a parent of a young child, I’m assuming you have a coffee maker and paper coffee filters on hand. Well filters, markers and water are all you really need to do some absorption art!
Supplies Needed
- white coffee filters
- markers
- scissors
- cup of water
Start by folding a stack of about 5 coffee filters in half and cutting out a leaf shape. Do this until you have as many leaves as you want to color.
Draw a thick circle in the center of your leaf with a marker. It’s fun to mix colors and see the results.
Fold your leaf in half side to side and then again top to bottom.
Dip the pointy end with the marker into the water so it starts to make the ink bleed.
Leave your leaves folded and set out on a towel to dry.
Once dry completely, unfold and enjoy. Strung together, these make a cute garland.
Ember + Pine 