Changing Leaves

We're one month in to our homeschooling journey and I'm increasingly thankful for the decision we made to start off in this direction. We're developing our own stride...figuring out timing, learning styles, routine, and diligence. I hope to write a more detailed post in the near future about what we've chosen to do this year for curriculum as well as a bit about our schedule...mostly just for my own records, but also because other blogs and recommendations were so helpful to me as we started.

With it being fall [YAY!], we've been reading and learning a bit about leaves.

Truett and Maren both enjoy art, which has made it a special part of our learning times together, and something I'm working at incorporating even more into our weekly schedule. For this project, I used painter's tape to make a tree shape on a canvas. The kids painted the canvas and we peeled back the tape to reveal the tree shapes. 

I really enjoy watching the kids be creative...I gave them no instruction whatsoever as to where to place colors. I gave them the paints and brushes and they had free reign...so fun to see what they ended up doing! I intended these to be 'Family Trees' that we'd write the 4 generations on after painting, but I loved them so much just plain, we decided to leave them that way! We'll come up with another way to make a family tree next spring.

Maren's tree

Truett's tree

As soon as leaves began to fall in our yard, Maren started asking to make a big pile for jumping in...something that's just not the same here in Colorado as it was back in Michigan. I remember spending HOURS on the weekends in October raking leaves and stuffing what felt like thousands of bags...and the piles were so huge our entire family could easily get buried. Someday we hope to make a trip back to Michigan to enjoy a good midwest autumn.

Thankfully, Maren doesn't know what she's missing when it comes to leaf piles. Brett took the older 2 kids out front one night after dinner to play in the leaves, and they were thrilled. This might be one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken...they were running at me for a surprise attack while I was snapping pictures...Maren's face is so full of joy. I love it.

Truett filled up his bucket over and over to dump on the rest of us.

We checked out this book from the library to read while we did another leaf craft. The story was a great level for both kids...they learned a few things without being too overwhelmed by scientific jargon. 

I cut out leaves from coffee filters and used a glue gun to make the veins. The kids painted the leaves with watercolors while we read our book.

In the midst of our learning...sweet Elin continues to grow and grow! She's become quite the chunk and we're all smitten with her generously offered smiles.