The leaves are falling down..

I dunno about where you are, but the leaves have not stopped falling yet!! I feel like Ive been raking everyday, and then the ground is covered again!! The boys are loving it though...

Here are some fall songs we've been singing around here!!

THE LEAVES ON THE TREES
Tune: “The Wheels On The Bus”

The Leaves on the trees are yellow and brown,
Yellow and brown, yellow and brown.
The leaves on the trees are yellow and brown,
All through the town.

The leaves on the trees are falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
The leaves on the trees are falling down,
All through the town.

The leaves on the trees make a crunching sound,
Crunching sound, crunching sound.
The leaves on the trees make a crunching sound
All through the town.

Let’s rake all the leaves into a mound,
Into a mound, into a mound.
Let’s rake all the leaves into a mound
All through the town.

The children in the town jump up and down,
Up and down, up and down.
The children in the town jump up and down
On the leaves on the ground.
Jean Warren
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give a few of the kids small brooms/rakes and sing the following words to "London Bridge"

Autumn leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down, Autumn leaves are falling down welcome Autumn.

Sweep the leaves and put them here, put them put here, put them here, Sweep the leaves and put them here, welcome Autumn.

Jump right in and have some fun, have some fun, have some fun, Jump right in and have some fun-welcome autumn.

children participate in the activity in a circle and follow the cues for the activity.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This little Fall song is sung to the easy tune of "Wheels on the Bus." Give each child a paper leaf for the movement portion.

The leaves on the trees turn orange and brown, orange and brown, orange and brown. The leaves on the trees turn orange and brown, all through the town.

The leaves on the trees come tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down. The leaves on the trees coming tumbling down, all through the town.

The leaves on the ground go swish, swish, swish. Swish, swish, swish. Swish, swish, swish. The leaves on the ground go swish, swish, swish, all through the town.

Swing Painting

This is great to strengthen the vestibular system. This particular project would be EXCELLENT for children with anxiety, panic attacks, or self stimulating behaviors. Although the boys are typically developing, they still loved it!

You could use a therapy swing, but we got creative and just used our tire swing! I just put them on the swing over paper, and gently pushed them. It took a lot of coordination for them to figure out how to paint! haha

Playhouse Update

So this past week I have been a bit out of the loop! My mother in law came to visit, and we spent a lot of time with her! We visited a few local parks, and overall had a great time together. I also have a test coming up for graduate school admissions that I have been preparing for. So I haven't had much time to blog.

I did manage to do some updates to the playhouse. If you haven't had a chance to read my playhouse blog, please do! Anyways. The boys spend a lot of time outside, and in the playhouse. They LOVE IT!! I know once Logan is a bit older he will as well. I have all these ideas to enhance our outside experience next summer, and create a better "outdoor classroom." For now, this was our little update! LABELS!!!

I made labels for the door, windows, etc of the playhouse. I also printed out some pictures of bugs that are commonly found in our area! They are all glued to cardstock, and laminated! I hung them on the wall, with some pictures of "yellow trucks" (since we use them in the sandbox). My idea is when they get more interested into bugs.. they can use the labels to figure out what type it is. Sounds great in theory anyways. Otherwise they are just kind of cool to look at! :D

Painting in the driveway

With summer coming to an end (very upset about that) I decided to squeeze in a couple more "messy" projects that would best be done outdoors. One of the ones in mind was painting the driveway. It was really probably a good thing that we did this during a week that it wasn't AS hott outside because our driveway is black and can get reallllllly hott!

Anyways, first I had to make some paint. I mixed 1/4 cup of corn starch and mixed with 1/4 cup of water. I made four of them, and added food coloring into each! Then we went outside to paint!!

Todd was jealous of all the fun we were having, and had to join in!!

It was a fun way to end summer!! Easy cleanup too! ;) This is another one that can be done with babies, since the paint can be edible (but gross!)

Building a town

So for the past two weeks my little cousins (ages 11 & 13) stayed with us. Today their mom came back to pick them up, and she brought their younger brother who was 5 along for the ride. She was busy packing, and getting everyone's stuff together with hopes to be on the road shortly, and all (5) kids were a bit out of control. I eventually told everyone we had to go outside before I lost my marbles. (they were all yelling, fighting, tattling, etc etc). Once outside they were walking around aimlessly saying they were board.. nothing to do.. you know how it goes. So I grabbed some chalk, and toy cars and decided we were going to create a town, and a track. It ended up being tons of fun, and EVERYONE got involved. The older ones loved drawing everything, and thinking what the town needed to survive (gas station, food, hospital, entertainment, etc, and the little ones loved having a 'house' and driving their cars on the roads. It killed a lot of time, and kept everyone very busy!

2287.JPG" />

My cousin called me this morning to see if I wanted to come over with the boys, and do some tye dye. Sounded fun, so off we were!

Free Art Friday

Today we did some Free Art Friday-- but outdoors for some inspiration!

Hottest day of the season

So today is our "hottest day of the season." This summer I have been setting up a small wading pool and sprinkler for outdoor play time. It's pretty much to hott to do anything outside that doesnt involve some kind of water! Today I noticed the boys seemed to be getting bored kind of fast. So, I brought out some paint rollers, and a bucket full of water, and told them to paint the house! We also "painted" the ground, each other, and everything we saw! This brought some new excitement to water play, and a ton of laughs!

New Playhouse

I have been going back and forth with what kind of play equipment I want in the backyard. We have been considering getting something for Connor's big brother gift/ his birthday that is coming up. I want something that will last a while, and provide the boys with something to do when I send them outdoors to play.

We looked at big playgrounds. They have a wide price range from affordable to a bit much. However, we don't have THAT much room in our backyard for a huge over the top thing anyways. However, most of the basic ones were kind of boring. A couple swings, a slide, and maybe a few extras. I kept thinking back to my childhood. My dad built us an awesome playhouse set complete with a sandbox, monkey bars, slide, swings, and a fire pole! It was awesome. However, what I remembered most was the playhouse. We had sleepovers in there. We would pretend to be so many different things. I even remember bringing my baby dolls up there to play.

Then I made up my mind. I wanted something to foster imaginary play. I wanted a place the boys can pretend and use their imagination. A place to call "theirs." Plus.. we have two playgrounds within very very close walking distance to us that has swings, slides, the basics. So, we have plenty of opportunity to work on all those gross motor skills. So my playhouse search began.

After hours of browsing the web, looking at plans to build our own, ones at the market, etc. My husband found this one that was sitting in an old playground stores lot.

We went to go see it and check it out. It was a bit weathered looking, but in great shape! I got really excited about it, and if the price was right then thats what I wanted! I called them up, and negotiated a bit with the salesperson. I ended up getting it for a great price with delivery and all!

When it came I had them put it in the garage. I wanted to repaint and decorate it. Plus I didnt want Connor to see it yet! Here are some pictures after I got done with it!

Connor has a bunch of plastic tools in our backyard. I created this "work bench" to store his tools, and he can pretend to build things. I have some great ideas of things I want to add next summer when he's a little older. I figured I could also get some small chairs, and this can work as a table too!

It has a working doorbell, and everything! Todd put big cylinder blocks down on the ground, and a piece of plywood under it to keep it off the ground so it wont whether as badly. The paint I used on it will apparently help keep it waterproof as well! He loves it! Like I said, I have a few more things I want to do to it, but will wait until next year! I am very happy with this choice, and I can see lots of memories being made here!

Bird House

I went to Michaels craft store the other day, and found a cute mini wooden birdhouse wind chime. Since the weather is getting warmer, and this is going to be our first spring/ summer in the house I thought it would be cute to have Connor paint it to brighten up our backyard! I gave him some 'spring' acrylic paint colors to choose from. He wanted to use his fingers, which I thought would be a great idea! I wraped the chimes in some paper so they would stay paint free!

Look how cute!! Spring is fun!

Spring Trees

Before doing this project, we went on a walk to look at the trees, and talked about how they are changing. We also observed the other changes that were going on as a result of entering the Spring season!

I loved the way our fall trees turned out that I wanted to create some spring trees! So I took the same concept, and we sponge painted some green leaves on it!

Painting with ice

It has been really cold out! (obviously, since it is January). Everytime we go outside Connor says "burr cold." So I thought we should do something to reinforce the hot/cold concept he has become interested in. So I decided to paint with ice. The night before I put water in an ice tray, and dropped lots of food coloring in each. Then I put plastic wrap over it. I cut up straws and punched them through the plastic into each ice cube. In the freezer it went!

When they were done, I took off plastic wrap and popped them out! This is what they looked like!

Connor and the others LOVED painting with them! They used different colors and mixed them. This allowed us to talk about the different colors they make when mixed. We also talked about hott vs cold, ice, water, solid, liquid, and they learned the word "melting." This was a great activity to introduce many basic scientific terms, and it was lots of fun!

This would also make an awesome summer activity since ice would melt faster, and may be a fun way to 'cool down.'

Playing in snow

Snow is good for some things. I see it as a big sensory table! You can use the same kind of toys that you would use to play with sand, and learn the same concepts. You can fill and dump, measure, pour, sift, feel, rub, pat, and best of all its kind of relaxing. You can also work on gross motor skills on it. Especially since just basic walking in it can be a bit more tricky and require extra work! There is no wrong way to play with this material. I love it because it is so open ended. You can just simply shovel a little, or make a big igloo. There is so much to learn from it, and if your dressed appropriately you can enjoy it at any age! Plus, getting some fresh air during a season we usually spend the majority of the time indoors is great!

Looking at it from this perspective makes me a little more tolerable of the stuff! :D