Greening Sam and Avery

fall fun - felt board fall tree

I have made my first attempt at homemade felt board fun!

I made the felt board probably the most simple (and potentially not very long lasting) way possible. I took white felt stretched it over a piece of white foam board and then hot glued it down in the back. I didn't want to spend a lot of time or money on a felt board until I knew for sure that the kids (and I) would enjoy this type of activity.

Once the board was made I started getting creative with some other felt colors for the girls.

I cut out a big brown tree, grass, some flowers and lots of leaves.

Avery played with these uninterupted and uncoached for almost 45 minutes! I was blown away. So I knew I had to make some more and come up with some other ideas for Sam.

I put together this activity for Sam. (Thanks Aunt Jojo for the suggestions!)

I cut out green, red, yellow and orange leaves to go with the big brown tree trunk. Then I drew four different trees on the notecards. Each tree with different colors of leaves and numbers of leaves. Sam's job was to try and match the felt tree to each of the tree pictures.

As indepently as Avery played with the felt board, Sam needed coaching and assistance. I think this had more to do with the fact that she was tired and cranky than her actual comfort or interest in the activity. But I sat with her and we created the trees, pretended it was a windy day and talked about where the trees go in the Fall.  She wanted more pieces and more options to make pictures (not sure I will be able to make the squirrel and owl she requested!).

I am super excited about all the felt creations that are for sure in our future!

Have a felt creation tutorial you would care to share? What is your child's favorite felt board activity? I am new to this and would love any suggestions that you have!!

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The Nitty Gritty!

I didn't get pictures of the girls playing together but I actually have two boards made with matching sets for each girl. I didn't make the notecards for Avery, she is still a bit young for that, but she has all the other pieces now to play with.

I think to go along with this tree set I will also make pieces to create the other seasons; small flowers to go on the tree for spring along with small green leaf buds, then for winter I will make some winter snowflakes and snowmen for her to put in the picture.

Already this set has lead to work on counting, colors, matching and nature related discussions. Loving me some felt play!!

next year's pumpkins have been planted

We cleaned out a huge section of our back-back yard today. Then we dug six holes and buried all the seeds, guts and chunks of pumpkin waste that we had from our pumpkin carving party. The chunks and guts aren't really important, just a good way to compost those as well. I am hoping that if I can keep the weeds tamed back there that we could have a really good pumpkin patch.

The girls were very curious about what was going on and grabbed little rakes and shovels to help us dig the holes, plant the seeds and clear out some brush.

Today, unlike most days, I did not tell them they had to help. I didn't encourage them to come over and join me. I let them play and do their own thing while I got started. They gradually became interested in what I was doing and both found their way over to me wanting to help out. I love that!

We have a lot more yard work days coming up with dead-heading plants, raking leaves and cleaning up to get ready for winter. Though the girl's "help" may sometime slow us down it is so much more fun when these days can be spent as a family.

Do you include your kids in yard work?

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The Nitty Gritty!

Not much else to add about yard work. I enjoy it most days but the work to clear out our pumpkin patch was killer on my back and my bed is calling my name!

I do want to let you all know that I am going to be out for a few days this week. I am headed to the WI Association for Environmental Education Fall Conference! I am SO excited for this conference, especially a workshop on early childhood environmental education. Can't wait to share with you all the new stuff that I learn.

I will still get the outdoor play link up on Friday (super excited about my idea to share!) but probably not much else, until I get back on Sunday.

Hoping to at least get a book post up before I head out of town though!

outdoor play link up - pumpkin week - pumpkin ball

SUPER EXCITED! The Outdoor Play Link Up is BACK!!!!

Thanks goes out to Mama Pea Pod for getting this awesome link up back up and running. We have added another host that I am honored to be working with. If you are not familiar with Learning for Life you have to check it out.

Okay, so what were we up to this week for outdoor play? Pumpkin Ball! I actually made these for our carving party on Tuesday night but the kids were just more interested in their own play ideas then the ones I had come up with. What's a mom to do?! But the girls and I have just loved playing with these in the backyard this week.

I simply took washed out milk jugs, cut the bottoms off and then painted them. I used black electricians tape to cover the slightly sharp edge and used a black permanent marker to draw on the face. I covered the whole thing in modge podge to seal the paint. They worked pretty well with the bigger ball. The small ball was fun because it was a pumpkin but hard to know which direction the ball would go when you threw it using the jug.

Super simple, upcycling and tons of fun!

Now, let's get this linky started! If you have never been a part of a link before please be sure to check out the other ideas, leave comments, and let them know you are stopping by from the Outdoor Play Link Up. It is just more fun if we are all out there checking out the ideas and chatting about what we are finding at the Link Up!

How did your kids play outdoors this week?
 
Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us! Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

• Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!
• Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.
• Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!
• Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished.

 

pumpkin week - pumpkin art

Sam slept today! She actually took a nap. This is groundbreaking news in my life! But since we were headed to the gym when she woke up for some family pool time and workout time her long nap meant no time today for crafting. What is a mom (and blogger!) suppose to do?

Have the 21 month old do the project!

You can kind of see the toilet paper tube and the small balloon in the picture. Those were our painting instruments. And a big bowl of orange paint! Her job was to use the two tools to paint a pumpkin patch.

I talked to her about what the pumpkin patch looked like when we saw it, just like I would have talked to Sam. But she had way more fun doing things her own way then sticking with just making the circle, "pumpkin" shapes.

Like watching the paint drip off the balloon.

And smearing the paint all over with the balloon. Plus switching back and forth from tool to tool was really fun too!

 

When Sam finally woke up from her nap she was intrigued by the painting that her sister had created and I had to promise her that tomorrow she could try out the project too.

Really fun to let Avery experiment with new tools and just have fun with paint! And great to see her doing it on her own and not just following Sam's lead all the time.

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The Nitty Gritty!

So there are tons of different ways you can create with the image of the pumpkin and pumpkin patches. The web and blog world is just FULL of them. But some of my fellow preschool and kid-friendly bloggers passed along their great ideas to me and I think theses are just so cute and clever that I had to share them.

Child Central Station - painting a pumpkin patch with plungers and my inspiration for one of today's tools came from pumpkin patch painting with balloons; they also sewed pumpkins with kids as young as 2 which I think is an awesome idea!

Mama Pea Pod - suncatcher jack o'lanterns; these are SO cute and I think could be age appropriate for a lot of kids.

Red Ted Art's Blog - jar jack o'lanterns; and it is a vlog so that is super fun!

Kreative Resources - paper mache pumpkin; an awesome big paper mache pumpkin!

Like I said there are tons more I could have shared but these are just a few that I really liked. Enjoy and happy crafting!

pumpkin week - pumpkin seeds

When you have two families over to carve pumpkins, plus your own giant pumpkin, you end up with LOTS of pumpkin seeds. What do you do with them?

Well, we will be digging holes in our backyard (the VERY back of our backyard) and burying most of them to try and grow another pumpkin patch next year. We did this last year too and we did actually get a vine but it ended up not being in a great spot and was trying to climb all over our air conditioner (not cool!) so we had to pull it out. Luckily our compost pile produced a massive pumpkin patch for us anyway. We are hoping to grow pumpkins again next year and it would be great if they would grow from the seeds from this year. It is a great life-cycle kind of lesson for the girls to see.

But before we do that I thought it would be fun to try out a crafting project with them. My inspiration came from a picture that I saw on Pinterest but the link would not work so I had no idea how they accomplished it.

We started out by drying out the seeds in the oven just a bit (low temp and only a few minutes). Then I mixed some food coloring with vinegar, just like dyeing eggs, and dropped some seeds into each color.

You can see that some seeds are much brighter in color than others. The mixture of vinegar and color was not working out so great so for some of them I did just food coloring and mixed the seeds straight in the food coloring. Those turned out much brighter.

Then we grabbed some cardstock type paper (old cracker boxes) that would be stiff enough to old a seed mosaic.

We used regular white glue and started creating.

Our final products.

Sam's

And mine

Sam had a really fun time with this craft project! And I think the final product turned out super cute!

What do you do with your pumpkin seeds?

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The Nitty Gritty!

Of course I would suggest cooking some of your seeds too but I have yet to find a recipe/way to cook them that I really like. I did buy some roasted ones for the kids at the carving party to try. My girls seem to like them okay, so if you have a recipe that you use and enjoy I would love hearing it.

I found out later that the craft I saw on Pinterest was also listed on Hands On: as we Grow's Pumpkin Activities post. You can see the Autumn tree pumpkin seed craft here.  On the hands on:as we grow post you can also see other pumpkin seed crafts, ways to explore the pumpkin guts and even pumpkin seed math! Love these ideas. 

Lots more pumpkin fun coming!

pumpkin week - carving party

The end result is fabulous!

But getting there was another story.

It started out great, with helpful and happy kids.

But the lure of toys and playtime with friends quickly grew too powerful. Before the pumpkin were even all cleaned out the kids disappeared and left the adults to tackle the pumpkins.

It didn't seem to bother any of the adults too much. We all kind of got into the carving and creativity behind carving pumpkins. I tried out the cookie cutter and rubber mallet method. Awesome way to carve a pumpkin but my pumpkin was too thick so the cookie cutters could not cut all the way through. But they still provided a great starting point to do my carving from. I made a polka-dotted pumpkin!

With an E for "Enlund" too!

And Chris did a great job on my super big pumpkin!

I think the kid's favorite part was the cookies!

(Our friend Taylor!)

So, pumpkin carving was not much of a kid friendly activity tonight but they thought the end result was pretty cool.

What are you doing with your pumpkins this year?

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The Nitty Gritty!

Need some ideas on what to do with pumpkins that is truly kid friendly?  Check out all of these awesome idesa!

Critters and Crayons - pumpkin as vase

Toddler Approved - buttons and ribbons on pumpkins

Nurture Store - looking for a funkier pumpkin? check out this one with glitter, paint and push-pins

The Imagination Tree - beautiful drip-art pumpkins

The Outlaw Mom - no carve pumpkin decorating ideas

And lastly, if you are doing the old fashioned carving thing, like we did, might be a good idea to brush up on the How-To of pumpkin carving!

Quirky Momma - real instructions for carving a pumpkin. I could have used these tonight!

Wow. That is a lot of great idea, with TONS more out there to be found. Thanks to all the great ladies that passed along these fun ideas for me to check out and post for my readers. I hope you will click around and check out what other folks are up to this year with their pumpkins.

 

pumpkin week- pumpkin puzzles

My inspiration for today's project came from Teach Preschool. You can check out her idea here.

I first cut out a whole bunch of orange circles. I tried my best to make them pumpkin-shaped but whatever, they are just odd shaped circles! 

Anyway, then I did this to two of the circles.

Sam really liked this activity but did get frustrated that she couldn't draw the triangle correctly.

Then I drew complete faces on the rest of the pumpkins and cut them in half. Sam had to match up the faces. She liked this one a lot!

So, two pumpkin activities in one today! I didn't get a chance to try the second one out with Avery, but she has been so into puzzles lately that I am thinking she might understand it a bit. I will let you know how it goes!

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The Nitty Gritty!

Okay, tonight I am linking to to posts that specifically deal with learning, puzzle, game or other pumpkin inspired activities. The craft links and pumpkin decorating ideas will come later this week, don't worry!

Joyfully Weary - Fridge Jack O'Lanterns

Hands On: As We Grow - 40 pumpkin Activities this one has lots of ways to decorate pumpkins but it also has lots of pumpkin activities, pumpkin math and games too.

Living Montessori Now - Pumpkin Unit  there are LOTS of great pumpkin inspired activities 

Learning for Life - Pounding Pumpkins okay this one isn't puzzles or anything like that but I thought it was so different and creative for a pumpkin activity that I just had to include it today!

Teach Preschool - magnetic pumpkin play this is a really cool way to let kids explore making pumpkin faces 

Little Family Fun - pin the face on the pumpkin
    and Pumpkin Treasure hunt

Okay, this just scratches the surface of all the awesome ideas that I have to link up to this week but I wanted to start you all out slowly!

Be prepared to be overwhelmed tomorrow!!!!  

 

pumpkin week - upcycle pumpkin craft

Starting a week on pumpkins! And get ready for some awesome ideas! No, probably not the things that we will be doing that are MY ideas, but the TONS of links I am going to pass along this week of all the amazing pumpkin themed stuff that other incredible preschool and parent bloggers are doing out there. I can't wait to share with you all the stuff that I have found.

But first, here is what we did today.

And of course I had to make one too!

I was really impressed with how well Sam took to this project. She loved finding the orange and green pages in the magazines and then cutting the small pieces. She also worked really hard to make sure that the whole thing was covered. And I think the pumpkins are super cute too!

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The Nitty Gritty!
So, I want to start this week of pumpkins and sharing ideas off with sharing some of our favorite pumpkin ideas from the past.

Just recently we made some really cute 3D pumpkins that are still hanging up in my kitchen.

A great toddler pumpkin book and activity - Five Little Pumpkins.

Something fun to do when all the halloween fun is over and your pumpkins are a pile of rotting mush! Plant them!

And of course we have carved them!

Now you can see why we need to have a pumpkin themed week, we clearly have not done enough stuff with these things.

Stay tuned this week for LOTS of great ideas from around the web. And if you have an idea that you would like to share or have blogged about please leave a link in the comments so I can check it out and share it with my readers (if you have already told me on Facebook you do not have to share the link again!).

 

fall in the garden

Did you see the great post by Go Explore Nature about getting your kiddos in the garden in the Fall? If not you need to head over there and check it out.

Sam and I headed to the garden today to finish pulling the carrots.

We had a lot to dig up but with us both using our shovels and just digging away it took no time at all! She loved digging and loosening up the soil around the carrots and then wiggling them until they were loose enough to pull out. While we were digging we found moths, worms, ants and spiders, lots of great little critters! Even though it was really chilly Sam and I had fun digging in the dirt.

Great Fall activity!

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The Nitty Gritty!

Okay, this didn't actually happen today! I am at a college friend's wedding today and did this with Sam yesterday. But I really wanted to share the link to the post that I mentioned and show off our amazing end of the season carrots.

Go dig in the dirt as many times as you can before the ground freezes! You just never know what your kiddos may find in the Fall!

fall fun - playing in leaves

 
This is a great way to entertain five cousins while at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

You can just barely see Sam's shoes sticking out of the leaves in the picture above!

 
 
 
Great outdoor play, fun with family and good exercise!

Thanks family for playing and being silly with my girls outside while I was having an awesome weekend with my two best friends from college! So sorry that I couldn't be there to be silly with you all! _________________________________________________________________________________________

The Nitty Gritty!

Much like tree climbing, playing in the leaves is kind of an old-fashioned activity. I don't know how many parents still let their kids jump in piles of leaves, roll around and bury themselves in the leaves but every parent should be! It is a great hands-on outdoor play activity that is free and so simple. But the opportunities are endless.

Games/activities you can do in a pile of fall leaves -

• Run, jump and be buried in them
• Dig through the leaves for insects
• Pretend to be insects as you crawl through the leaves
• Create a large pile and hide a treasure in the middle for your child to dig and find
• Let your child dig through the pile of leaves to find special or unique leaves, leaves that don't match or leaves with the most colors
• Throw leaves up and see how many you can catch as they fall down

So get outside and play in the leaves with your kids!