GYH Autumn Post Round-Up

Now that fall is officially here and Halloween is only a few weeks away (and Thanksgiving will be coming not long after that), many of us are trying to come up with fun and creative ways for including the season into our homeschools.  So, here is a round-up of ideas that we have shared here at Growing Your Homeschool over the past few years:

Fall Activities (Seeds of Wisdom)

Fall Craftiness

Fall Nature Table

Pumpkin Painting

Pumpkin Reading List

Thanksgiving Crafts

Thanksgiving Traditions (Seeds of Wisdom)

Teaching About Thanksgiving (Seeds of Wisdom)

What autumn, Halloween, or Thanksgiving activities do you have planned in your homeschool?  Please share your related blog posts in the comments below.

Pumpkin Painting Ideas

Who says you can't incorporate a little pumpkin decorating into your academic work?

A few ideas for combining pumpkin fun and learning -----

• Literary Pumpkins (literature) - Create characters from a story, like Humpty Dumpty, or this familiar set of friends.

• Planets (science) - Do you have quite a few pumpkins? A whole solar system could be made with them.  Want to be even more technical, try to coordinate sizes.  Make the largest pumpkin Jupiter and a smaller one Mercury.
• Globe (geography) - Just want to paint one planet?  Why not try to draw the rough outlines of the continents and paint one pumpkin to resemble the earth.
• Georgia O'Keeffe style flowers (art) - Are you currently studying a particular artist?  Earlier this year, we learned about Georgia O'Keeffe and her large scale paintings.  When it came time to paint pumpkins this year, we simply turned a pumpkin over and painted one large scale flower similar to her painting style.

• Flags (geography) - Are you studying a particular country?  Perhaps you could paint a landmark or the country's flag on your pumpkin.
• People, Events, or Inventions from the Past (history) - Studying the American Civil War this year could lead to a painting or carving of Abe Lincoln on your pumpkin.
• Animals (science) - Does your child have a favorite animal?  Perhaps he would like to use his pumpkin to make one.  My youngest son is planning how to make a bat out of a pumpkin.  He has decided he will add black construction paper wings to the pumpkin.
• Patterns and Shapes (math) - Perhaps you would rather try something more basic.  How about painting a pattern of stripes or simple shapes?

Two Preschool Pumpkin Painting Tips -----

1. Encourage your preschooler to coat an entire pumpkin with glue using a foam brush.  Then, sprinkle glitter over the wet glue.  Allow it to dry completely. 
2. Securely tape a simple stencil or shape, i.e. a leaf shape, onto the pumpkin.  Ask your preschooler to paint over it all.  Allow the paint to dry and remove the shape to reveal the design.

 

Ideas for Before and After Painting Pumpkins ------

Before you paint, decorate, or carve your pumpkin, use it in your math and science lessons.  Measure the weight and girth of each pumpkin.  Conduct comparisons.  Observe your pumpkins in their natural state.  Are their many differences?

After, when the pumpkin starts to waste away, because they will, try using them for further lessons.  Cut them open and see what was inside them.  Or host your own "Pumpkin Chunkin" contest.  Encourage your children to build their own catapults or pumpkin launchers and hold a contest to see which machine can launch the pumpkins the farthest.



Looking for other ways to incorporate pumpkins into your homeschool days?  Perhaps a look through In a Pumpkin Shell, by Jennifer Storey Gillis, will offer you a few ideas.

Or, perhaps you'd rather just cuddle up with your child and enjoy reading a few pumpkin books?  Then this listing compiled last autumn by Beth will help you find a few good ones to share.

Seeds of Wisdom --- Teaching About Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away; many homeschooling moms are beginning to teach about this national holiday.  Today, we share with you what Thanksgiving activities we are doing in our homeschools.

Aurie

We start lunch and dinner asking the girls what they are thankful for. This month I'll be recording their answers each time. In the past we've had a thanks jar {where we put slips of paper in} but this year we are going to have a thankful tree that the girls can actually put their "thanks" on.

Beth

We are still working on the basic stuff, the letter T, what turkeys are, and reading children's literature about Thanksgiving. We will learn the ASL signs for turkey, Happy Thanksgiving, thank you, and the sign for the letter t. This week the kids made turkeys creating the feather plumage with finger paint and thumprints.

Dorie

We are studying the history of the holiday with books and hands on activities. However, our main focus is on giving thanks to the Lord for all His blessings. In the past we have used a tree with each leaf naming a blessing. I loved the visual reminder of our abundance of blessings! This year we are using a Thanks jar, writing on slips of paper the names of our blessings.  



Jessica 
Our curriculum is focused on American history especially this year, and we started studying the pilgrims just two weeks ago. I also keep a system of books and magazines to lay out monthy, so November included all our Thanksgiving-themed bo...oks. Several of the children's individual reading assignments are Thanksgiving-focused books, as well. I did the same thing for Halloween, and will do so for Advent and Christmas.

Marla

We will be starting our Thanksgiving lessons next week.  Each day, we are going to read several books about Thanksgiving (fiction and non-fiction books).  We are making a Thankful tree; each day, we add one or two things that Abigail is thankful for and then we pray a prayer of thanks for those things.  We are also making turkey handprint thank-you cards and giving them to various people who have had an impact on the girls' lives.  Additionally, I downloaded Thanksgiving preschool packs from a few of my favorite bloggers, as well as activities from DLTK Kids and ABCTeach; we will be working through those.

Ralene

We're doing a Thankful tree (every morning we hang new leaves with stuff we're thankful for), and we're discussing thankfulness, wastefulness, and Thanksgiving traditions/history over the next three weeks.

Sam

We are studying Jamestown right now, and we also have picked up several books at the library. We will be sticking with our regular lessons, and reading the other books during our reading time outside of school.

How are you teaching about Thanksgiving in your homeschool?

Fall Craftiness!!

We have been totally enjoying fall.  We've played in the leaves, cleaned out the flower beds and started to put outside toys away.  We've run on the towpath, enjoyed our first bonfire, climbed hay bales, joined a hay ride and just generally have been spending as much time as we can outside.

There are some amazingly crafty posts that I've been stumbling on and book marking for us to create.  I thought I'd share some of my favorite fall crafts that we've found and made{so far!!}

* I love this hand print wreath - it was so easy to create!!

* Have you every made waxed leaves?  Super fun for the girls! We then used string and made a garland!

* This site has some really fun fall printable color sheets!

* Sophie LOVES to paint, so this finger paint tree was perfect for her.

* As a child I loved to make apple turkeys!  We will be making these next week, complete with a hand print for the turkey's feet.

What fun fall crafts are you doing?  Leave us a link in the comments!!