Exploring Leaves and Pumpkins

The kids and their families collected all kinds of wonderful Autumn nature items for us to explore as we continued to study the Autumn Season and the changes that were happening around us! These two friends helped categorize everything into groups.

Then I organized it into an invitation for them to look closer, notice, explore, wonder and document!





They used tempera paint, water colors and collage to show what they noticed happening with the colors of the leaves on the trees! 





After exploring the materials they used creative thinking skills to create with natural items inspired by the book “Leaf Man” by Lois Ehlert!

They worked hard to document what they saw like scientists!



Next think we knew it was Halloween! The week of Halloween I set up invitations for story creating and telling in our sensory bin and block area.

They LOVED creating monsters out of clay!





One of their favorite stories was Creepy Carrots!



Creating these was a great workout for our finger muscles!



More monster creations from our Maker Space! Halloween really inspired them in their stories and creations!



They voted on a creepy face for our Jack-o-lantern! The ones who love pumpkin goop had a ball smooshing around in it and then separating the seeds from the pulp!



Here is the finished carving!



We will set it here to see what happens to it!



Here is what happened to it! They had to touch it!

On Halloween we had a parade in our costumes! 

Kids are always smiling on Halloween!



After that exciting week, we started looking closer at our pumpkins and seeing what we noticed. I set out an invitation to explore, document and measure.










We read a lot about the pumpkin life cycle so we created a project to show what we learned. They divided into teams to make the different stages. Each team used books and technology to make everything as accurate as possible! Then they got to work!

Finally it was time to open the other pumpkins. They wondered mostly about the inside of the white one! We cut them open and let them observe, document and explore…but most just wanted to squish it all up!

We also went on a field trip to Cox Arboretum to go on a Fall scavenger hunt! They were so interested in all the little details in nature! 

They always want to climb the observation tower!





The view was wonderful!



Ginkgo trees are there favorite because they were around in the time of the dinosaurs so we had to take a picture in front of one!



This hedge maze is always a favorite! I remember when they first planted the tiny shrubs when my kids were tiny 20 years ago!



We went on a fish/frog/turtle hunt and found all three!



Here are some of the things that were collected on our hike!



A lot of discussion happened about the animals and which ones would live here! An investigation into Ohio Animals may be coming up! They were also noticing the berries, hedge apples and walnuts and wondered what would happen to the animals when they all got eaten! Where would they get there food? We will see where these wonders will take us!