Mitten Prints

We dug out a few of Eva's outgrown mittens for this fun craft.  First, Eva chose three different paint colors- pink, purple and turquoise- and I poured a little of each on small plates.  Eva then pulled on a mitten, dipped her hand in the paint and stamped onto a sheet of paper.

Such fun!

We sang a favorite winter song while painting too:

The Mitten Song

Thumb in the thumb hole,

Fingers all together

This is the song 

We sing in mitten weather!

Paper Bag Turkey

I completely forgot to post this guy!  We made him last week.  Eva helped me stuff a brown paper lunch bag with newspaper and then she cut out feathers I drew on a few of her old paintings.

We glued them to the back of the bag, tied off his neck and head with string and added eyes, beak and feet.  His waddle would not stay on no matter what we tried!  He now resides by our November calendar and leads us in our turkey poem:

A turkey is a funny bird,

his head goes wobble, wobble.

And the only thing he ever says

is gobble, gobble, gobble!

Happy Harvest

Welcome November!  It's time for harvesting and giving thanks.  This week is all about the bountiful harvest.

Crafts
Toilet Paper Tube Scarecrow- we'll use scraps to transform a simple recyclable into a cute scarecrow

Puffy Paint Gourds- we'll create our own puffy paint to give texture to paper gourds

Fingerprint Indian Corn- no harvest is complete without some Indian (or Harvest) corn

Corn Cob Painting- I can't wait to see the abstract paintings Eva will create using a corn cob for a paint roller

Cornucopia Collage- Eva is going through a little scissor obsession of late so we'll put her skills to work cutting out pictures of food to place in a paper horn of plenty

Cup Crow- this little guy is too cute to pass up making

Songs
Five Crows All Shiny Black (sung to the tune of Five Green and Speckled Frogs)
Five crows all shiny black,
Sat on a scarecrow's back,
Eating some most delicious corn ... yum yum!
Scarecrow winked and shouted "Boo!"
Scared one crow and away he flew,
Now there are four black shiny crows, caw caw!

Scarecrow (sung to the tune of I'm A Little Teapot)
I'm a little scarecrow
Stuffed with hay,
Standing watch in my field all day.
When I see a crow
I like to shout:
"Hey, Mr. Crow, you'd better get out!"

Activities
Scarecrow, scarecrow- we'll be moving around following the lead of Mr. Scarecrow (like the Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear rhyme)

Gourd Exploration- we'll be touching and examining all different gourds

Harvest Sensory Tub- check out what it's in this month's tub

Cooking
Corn Bread- we'll bake some yummy corn bread to enjoy

Books
           

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins, sitting on a gate

The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late."

The second one said, "There are witches in the air."

The third one said, "But I don't care."

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run."

The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun."

Then OOOOOOOO went the wind

and out went the light

And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

-Author Unknown

Eva loves this poem so when I saw the book I had to pick it up for her.  We read it several times a day and today we made puppets to go along with it.  I cut out five pumpkins from orange card stock and Eva drew the faces on them.

When she was done I used packing tape to stick green craft sticks to the back of them.  Now we can act out the poem!

We also made a super simple pumpkin using a roll of toilet paper, a sheet of orange tissue paper and some green card stock.  First Eva wrapped the toilet paper in tissue paper tucking the ends into the roll.

Then we rolled up a piece of green card stock and pushed it into the roll too.

We added a leaf and then placed the pumpkin in our little indoor patch.

Pumpkin Exploration Station

As you can see pumpkins are a big part of our calendar this month.  Each day Eva checks the pattern to see whether it will be a leaf day or a pumpkin day.  After putting the date on we sing our days of the week song and then do our poem of the month using the big stuffed pumpkin:

Pumpkin, pumpkin big and round

I'm glad you grow upon the ground

For if you grew up in a tree

You might fall and land on me! 

(the stuffed pumpkin bonks us on the head at the end- giggles all around!)

The sensory tub has been made a little spookier, filled with black beans; black and orange yarn pom poms; black, green, purple and orange sparkly pom poms and Halloween erasers.

This game allows Eva to practice her fine motor skills by pinching pom poms with tongs and placing them in a pumpkin ice cube tray.  She also gets to make patterns with the colors.

Using a bunch of plastic pumpkins, Eva is able to sort them according to size.  This is a favorite already!

Finally, I made a letter matching game by writing upper case and lower case letters on pumpkins left over from the calendar.  I also found stickers of things that start with the letters.

Eva has to find the letters that go together and the picture that starts with the letter.

She did great with it and when Daddy came down from work, she dragged him over to play it again with her.

A Plethora of Pumpkins

I've been looking forward to this week for quite some time- I love pumpkins!  There have been so many great pumpkin ideas circulating the web lately that it was hard to narrow down what we are going to do this week but I think I've packed the week full of pumpkin fun.

Crafts
Toilet Paper Pumpkins- what better way to dress up the bathroom for fall than these fun pumpkins

Paper Bag Pumpkin- watch and see as we transform a brown paper bag into a bright orange pumpkin

5 Pumpkins on the Fence- we'll glue paper pumpkins up on a popsicle stick fence

Pumpkin Patch- our dot dabbers will help us make a patch full of round pumpkins

Activities
Lifecycle of a Pumpkin Sequencing- Eva will learn about how pumpkins start out as seeds and grow to full-size

Felt  Board Pumpkin- using felt pieces, Eva will be able to make various jack-o-lantern faces

Pumpkin Matching Game- this game will allow Eva to practice matching upper case and lower case letters

Pumpkin Memory Game- Eva's October issue of High Five had a fun little jack-o-lantern game we'll be playing this week

Pumpkin Sort- our mini pumpkins will come in handy for this activity

Pompom Pumpkins- Eva will work on her fine motor skills as she pinches pompoms to place in a pumpkin ice cube tray

Pumpkin Seed Counting- how many seeds will go in each pumpkin?

Pumpkin Patch- we'll take a trip to the local patch to pick the perfect pumpkin and we'll also use some of our own pumpkin decorations to make an indoor patch

Pumpkin Pie Playdough- we'll make a new batch of playdough to carry us through October and November

Cooking
Pumpkin Tortillas- check out these tasty treats!

Pumpkin Cookies- we'll bake some yummy cookies using pureed pumpkin

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds- no explanation needed for these!

Poems and Songs
Pumpkin, Pumpkin Big and Round

5 Pumpkins

10 Little Pumpkins

Books