Homeschool Update: Fall Crafts & Activities

            Hey folks! First off, I have to brag a little. I'm very proud of myself for being able to stick to this so far. Sure, we're only on week 8, but baby steps, right? Tbh, I figured I would slack off on the whole planning and executing at some point already, but I've been doing well! Sure, there have been a few weeks that were more lax than others due to outside stuff, like special trips, or because that's just what seems to happen for now in the weeks where we're wrapping a theme up, but we've still done “school” every week!

            I will admit, I have not been as good about the same daily schedule. Perhaps I'm just being too hard on myself. I've noticed the issue, though, and I've been trying to get better about it. Consistency! I am happy to report that, and it may totally be in my head, it seems like whenever Myka asks me, “What we gonna do tomorrow?” at bedtime it's more of a she-wants-to-know-what-to-look-forward-to question rather than are-we-doing-anything?...anything-at-all? question. Again, it's probably just in my head...

            I love taking pictures, so this week I thought I would share some of our fall-themed craftivities. We always do lots of crafts in the fall, so I thought we'd just stick to doing that this year. I asked Myka if she had any ideas of what we should learn about next week. In a nutshell, she wants to learn more of the “whys and hows” behind fall changes, so we will be focusing on some science experiment-type projects. I will leave links at the end!

I got the fall/Halloween felt pieces out the other day to keep the kids busy for awhile. :) I also found some other things I had been missing, like some felt cats and apple tree! I swear I'm losing my mind...

Myka really liked this lacing activity for our apple theme, so she made some leaf ones as well...With real leaves I Mod Podged with glow-in-the-dark stuff! In hindsight, way more trouble than it was worth, but she liked it.

One of the areas I've been slacking off in is incorporating alphabet and number specific activities into our days. Unless it's a game, Myka seems to get bored/frustrated (not really sure which, tbh) easily with math and letter activities. So in this “game” she had to match the lowercase letter to the uppercase one. She still has a hard time remembering some letters in general, but she has learned a lot over the past few months!

Here is a simple math activity I incorporated one day. I just had her sort the pumpkin seeds by color (several handfuls), then she counted how many of each there were. Naturally, she asked me how many we had altogether, so I broke my phone calculator out because, as I admitted to her, I am terrible at adding multiple numbers together in my head. I also threw in a few actual “math problems” by having her add together acorns and leaves.

Here are several of our arts and crafts projects. The top picture was supposed to be splatter painted, but it wasn't cooperating how it should so I just let her go crazy, hence the “looking more like a tree that is on fire” look. lol

Below that is supposed to be a texture pumpkin. That was a bit trickier than I thought to get her to understand. She caught on quickly, but she still wasn't really finding things with definitive textures. Oh well! She tried!

I love, love, LOVE how this crayon and watercolor leaf turned out at the bottom. Everyone except Ripley helped work on it. :)

Off to the side there we made some fall-colored marbled leaves! I feel like they turned out a lot better than the Easter eggs we tried to do in the spring.

I saved (what I thought) was the best for last. Every time I look at Myka's (on the bottom) I crack up. I painted “happy fall” on mine while she was using the restroom. So, when she came back, I asked her if she would like me to write anything at the top of hers. And that is what she wanted. Lol I think hers turned out better than mine. I went through mine too quickly. :/

Some of next week's line up:

*Pumpkin Lava Lamp

*Maple Leaf “Color, Scratch, Reveal”

*Why Do Leaves Change Color? Experiment

What fun fall-related crafts or activities have you done so far or plan to do soon?