Today is the first day of Fall! Who's excited?! I love stuff like this so I had a bunch of Fall-related things to do today after Babe did the required work to keep on track. But not before we prepared the calendar for today! Babe was so excited to change the Summer label to Fall!
As always, we started in Math with an overview of what's to come in Chapter 2. I showed her the difference between a cube and a square, a triangle and a cone, a circle and a sphere, and a rectangle and a cylinder. I reminded her about the spaghetti noodle fiasco from the other day and why it's not a circle, but a cylinder. She completely understands now, as I knew she would. We spent about 30 minutes going over each shape, and then we walked around the house searching for those shapes in everyday household items.
She immediately recognized the candles as cylinders, the toaster as a cube, pots as cylinders, and a birthday hat as a cone. Every now and then though, she'd forget a term. So we'd stop and go over them all again, then continue the house tour. After her worksheets, we were done with Math.
I initially decided to wait until after lunch to do Reading Comp., so I got out the ingredients for craft time - homemade play dough! Babe helped me measure and pour each ingredient into the pot, then she stirred the dough until she couldn't anymore.
After it became dough, I had to knead it while it cooled. It was pretty hot, so I figured I had enough time while it cooled to do Reading Comp. at the same time. We discussed the three stories we read this week, "Mice Squeak, We Speak", "Let's Play!", and "Now I'm Big". She remembered all of them, so I had her get a sheet of paper and split it into three. Then I had her draw her favorite animal from the first book, which was a frog. Then I had her draw her favorite thing to play with on the playground, which is a swing. In the last square I had her draw what she liked doing now that she couldn't do as a baby. She drew a bike and her pool.
Reading Comp. done. Play dough cool.
I split the play dough into three servings and had Babe, Bubs, and Z choose the color they wanted to dye it. Then the fun began! Calvert suggested I bring out gingerbread man cookie cutters to slowly transition into next week's science lesson about body parts, but since today was the first day of Fall, I brought out pumpkin and leaf cookie cutters instead. Everyone had a blast, even me! The homemade play dough turned out so good and smooth and flexible. I loved it. And so did they.
In addition to bringing out the cutters, I also brought out flatware. Z loves poking holes with the fork and Bubs can't get enough of cutting and slicing her dough.
This was a good hour, if not longer, activity. I was having a lot of fun, too, so I think that's what made it last longer. Oops.
After lunch, I had one more Fall activity before Bubs and Z went to bed. I brought out the glue, paint, cotton balls, cotton swabs, and a few fake fall leaves I got at Dollar Tree last night. Then had them each just go to town. I was very impressed with each of their artwork.
Z is getting very good at handling the glue bottle. He's still a little too young to realize that it's OK to get dirty during craft time, so he never lasts long. But nonetheless, I love it.
Bubs loves this kind of stuff, and lately she's been layering her crafts. As in, stacking. As in, making her craft a 3D project. Needless to say, her art is definitely the heaviest of the three.
When I said I let them go to town, that's exactly what Babe did. She gets very involved in all her crafts, so if Calvert doesn't have one to go along with the lesson, I think of something to do. She's very artsy. I never ever want to suppress that!
During naptime, I read Babe "Celebrating the Harvest" by Ellen Jackson. I brought out the world map with it and pointed to the country featured on the page I was reading. We read about the first Thanksgiving in the United States, how China celebrates the Harvest Moon by eating at midnight, and how kids in Angola pick up the last few corns of the fields and play keep-away with them! There are recipes from around the world at the end of the book that I can't wait to cook and taste next week as we continue our Fall activities for its first week.
In keeping with the Fall theme, I surprised Babe with a book she could read for her reading log. She did so with no problem!
She noticed it was number ten, her tenth book since started Kindergarten! I claimed it as a milestone and gave her a gift I bought her from the Dollar Tree. A Tinkerbell jigsaw puzzle. She couldn't stop saying thank you, and she immediately opened it and we put the border together. By this time it was really late in the day, so I knew her brain was almost done, but she kept pushing to do more of the puzzle. We kept working on it until Z woke up from his nap, in which she was done.
"Can I just watch PBS Kids now?"
"Sure! Did you have fun in Kindergarten today?"
"Yeah. That was the best first day of Fall ever."
Happy First Day of Fall, everyone!
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