We had a fabulous November in school enjoying the end of the fall season and all the fun activities about pumpkins and leaves that were featured throughout the month! Even though we didn't do every single suggestion in our curriculum, A Year of Playing Skillfully, for November, the ones we did do were greatly enjoyed. We also added a few hands-on learning lessons of our own. Here is a pictorial documentation of some of our fun memories!
Painting dot letters with Q-tips.
Isaac working the letter "N"...
JoJo painting the letter "T".
The final products! Isaac decided he wanted to "outline" the capital N with paint too. :)
JoJo and Mr. Lester snuggled up reading books together at our November Open House.
Pumpkin peg pounding - an idea inspired by my cousin who is a former Montessori school teacher. This one goes down in my book as absolutely brilliant! Especially for my brand of boys!
We used the pumpkins that the boys picked out from the pumpkin patch the month before, a package of colored golf tees, and some Melissa and Doug toy hammers we had in our toy collection.
The result was hours of fun for them -- and great fine motor skills being worked on, as well as hand-eye coordination! A definite win-win!
That's our Thankful Tree in the background - another super fun activity inspired by our preschool curriculum in conjunction with fond memories I have from childhood days when we made something similar. Every day, we filled out a leaf or two with something we were thankful for as we geared up for the Thanksgiving holiday. The boys loved this activity and begged to do more than one leaf every day. We also invited our guests who came to the open house to hang a leaf on the tree, which they enjoyed doing! This was a super simple way to keep thankfulness at the forefront of our minds throughout November - plus it made for a cute, colorful decoration in the kitchen!
I think they liked pounding something real (not just pretending) and feeling like Daddy, who can often be seen fixing things around the house. :)
Later, after baths, books, and little boys being tucked in bed, Isaac returned to the peg pounding activity and worked at his pumpkin for at least another half hour.
(Oh, and don't you love that adorable little card table he's sitting at? I found that at a garage sale recently for $4 including the two folding chairs! It has been the perfect addition to our school days as it's just the right size for any writing activity we do. It's also gotten a ton of use for coloring, puzzles, and general play time. So thankful for this great bargain!)
After we exhausted the peg pounding activity, we cut open the pumpkins and scooped out the seeds to see which pumpkin had more seeds, an idea that was inspired by a book from the library. Isaac worked very diligently with me to make piles of ten seeds in order to count up the totals.
This provided great counting practice!
Later, we used the empty pumpkin shells to make pumpkin volcanoes with vinegar and baking soda, another idea from our curriculum. As you might imagine this was a big hit with the boys! We did the "experiment" at least 3 or 4 times for the exciting wow factor of it!
Our fall-themed "sink or float" game.
Leaves, gourds, walnuts, pinecones, apples, rocks, sticks, and a few toys from around the house made it into the water! First, they had to give their "hypothesis" for what would happen to each item, which I noted on a piece of paper. Then we compared that with the reality of what actually happened and why. Simple science for the win!
Isaac's hotel that he built out of Duplos and a hammer. He also painted it with the paint brush you see on the table.
He was very proud of his creation!
Making placements with leaves from our yard. Isaac made a set of two as gifts for Grandmommy's birthday, then he and JoJo each made themselves one to keep.
Isaac really enjoyed this activity!
(Our $20 laminator from Aldi has come in SO handy for projects like this! I'm super thankful for such a great deal on a tool that we will be using over and over again in our home school!)
The finished product!
It was a happy fall, y'all!
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