Leaves

Books: Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf - Lois Ehlert; Why do Leaves Change Color? - Betsy Maestro
Music: Leaves are Falling and for the adults Autumn Leaves
Activity: Collect Leaves. That is if you live somewhere where the leaves change, otherwise just look at a book.
Art: Watercolor leaves. This lesson says to use liquid watercolor in droppers. I've done a similar project with coffee filters and washable markers and then you spray the filter with water to get the colors to spread. Markers seem less of a hazard than liquid watercolors. But she has a template already made so we'll go with that for now. Maybe I will make my own later.
Food: Maple Leaf cookies from Trader Joe's or if you are feeling really ambitious and have lots of time on your hands you can try these Martha Stewart ones Homemade

Apples

There really are endless amounts of things you can learn, create, and eat that involve apples. I had to limit myself here so I didn't go overboard.   


 Books: Apples - Gail Gibbons; Johnny Appleseed - Steven Kellogg; How do Apples Grow? - Betsy Maestro. I don't have any of these books and had to reserve them at the library so you might need to do that as well.
Music: A.P.P.L.E. and Applesauce
Activity: Identify Parts of an Apple 
I found this easy diagram online to use.
Art: Tissue Paper Apple 
This is super easy. All you need to do is print this apple shape out on cardstock and then glue red, green, or yellow scraps of tissue paper.
Food: Homemade Applesauce. You might have your own recipe or like to tweak it a bit like I do. But you can never go wrong with Martha.
Film: Apple Dumpling Gang

Primary Colors

I'm very excited about this week and hope that I get around to finishing all the projects.

Books: Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
Songs: Primary Colors - OK Go I saw this on Sesame Street and thought it was so great.
Activity: Mixing Colors. All you need is plastic cups and food coloring. We have done this before but I found a color wheel online that you can print out and they can color in as they learn. (courtesy of Art Factory)
Art: Mondrian inspired. I have been very excited to do this art project with the kids for a while. I created a little sheet that you can print out to get started. You can choose to either have the kids color the page using the primary colors or cut out squares and rectangles out of construction paper and allow them to glue wherever they would like. Try not to fill every square and to leave some white spaces.
Food: I figured we could do something easy and make jello.

Numbers

Book: Ten Black Dots - Donald Crews
Activity: Number sorting with beads. You need 10 paper or styrofoam bowls, and large beads
Art: Imagination play with black dots. Cut out 10 black circles and let them create something with them (like a scene from the book).
Food: Domino Snack. I'm thinking a graham cracker covered with marshmallow fluff and chocolate chips for dots. You could do a healthier version with nut butter and raisins.
Music: 10 Little Numbers. I grew up singing a non-PC version of this song. 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Plain White T's. This is just a fun song to sing.

Learning about Rain

I was going to do a number theme this week since last week we learned about letters, but the wet Miami summers changed my plans. What better way to learn about rain than when its raining outside. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with me. Here is my plan for this week and we'll see what happens.

Music: Singing in the Rain. My kids are obsessed with this clip. We also sang "If all the Raindrops Were Lemon drops and Gumdrops"
Film: Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood - A Stormy Night (available on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime).
Activity: Rain science experiment. Like this one from Pinterest Requires water, shaving cream, and food coloring
Book: Rain! - Linda Ashman; Come On, Rain! - Karen Hesse
Art: Watercolors and rain. The rain didn't cooperate with us so we will have to go back and finish this. You have the kids paint with watercolors and then put the paper out in the rain to see what the rain will do.