Fall has just begun and it is such a beautiful sight to see. Even though we haven't been able to find acorns yet and the leaves are just starting to change colors I wanted to bring the new season inside. This is a quick and easy way to give the kids an area to use their senses and discover the early signs of Fall.
A few fall books, pine cones, leaves, A few colorful glass apples, and several sticks of cinnamon. That is all it took for the children to want to explore. You can add in acorns, apples, flowers if you choose.
I added in Autumn Montessori cards from Montessori for everyone. We have been having a lot of fun matching them and playing memory.
To go along with our Early Fall theme you might want to check out our Toddler nature shelves at Montessori on a Budget. Miss Bell loved her rocks and Sensory bottles.
I'm feeling like apples galore lately in my house and all over the internet, and it's a great feeling. I love apples, I love fall and I love when you can mix learning with fun. So lets get to it. We have enjoyed Science, Sensory, Math, and Practical Life lessons all with different types of apples.
The kids and I are setting up for our annual apple tasting. For the Montessori lovers out there, my kids are doing the cutting themselves. Aren't Apple Slicers awesome? Perfect for their little hands.
These are the apples we choose this week. They are all locally grown, however if they weren't I personally would have made a geography lesson out of it too. Mapping out all of the different apples.
If you would like to incorporate math like we did, make up a few different graphs for them to use (or have them help make some). We did 3 different types of graphs. Unfortunately I don't have any printable graph charts for you, but this took us two minutes to make up. Not to mention you are now teaching your children graphing. Perfect!!
Taste testers, I think Blakey is unsure of this one. Of course Little Miss Bell got in on it, she is always part of our daily learning. We used a chart to graph all of the different types of apples, yes it's our math for the day. I love living math.
All in all I'd say we had happy taste testers.
I was so excited to find this apple parts printable over at 2 Teaching Mommies. We went over the apple parts while we were tasting them and then did a few fun activities like this afterwards. Great to recap everything we learned, without me having to drill them on it. (You know what I mean-smile)
At the end of the week the boys wanted to plant all of the apple seeds just like Johnny Appleseed.
It's been a great week and we found out that in our house green apples are always at the top of our chart. Now I'm off for some of that delicious apple dip. Hope to see you here again soon.
OOOO how I love this time of year. The leaves are starting to change, there is a crispness to the air, and the smell of apple cider is filling the house. So since it is September and the start of apple season, let's bring apples into our learning.
A display that makes you want to play, that is the key.
Little B did a lot of patterns, great math using his fine motor skills.
These wonderful patterns I printed out from Imagine Our Life. They were a perfect addition to our week of learning.
We must have read Ten Apples up on Top at least 10 times, so of course we had to try balancing apples. Little B did a great job.
Okay so he's looking a little on the cookoo side in these two pics(above and below), but it's not easy getting perfect pics of a newly 5 year old signing. Hehe! Anyways, the awesome thing is he has learned how to sign a, b, c, and apple so far.
Apple Stamping
He is very proud of his picture, it hangs on the refrigerator for everyone to see.
Applesauce Sensory Squish!!!
We also found some great songs, and printable packs online that we have been enjoying too. So be sure to check out
If you missed out on our other great Apple Week Activities, or our Apple Sensory Play, you definitely want to head over to see all the fun we had exploring apples.
To start off with, I am definitely NOT a food blogger. You won't see gorgeous granite counter tops, or amazing mouth watering pictures of 5 star restaurant meal here either. What you will get is an easy, amazing apple dip recipe that will keep everyone wanting to lick their fingers.
Over the next few weeks I am doing a lot of apple activities with the kids and I knew they would love to add in their favorite apple dip. So here it is, even the little ones can help.
All you need is a can of sweetened condensed milk, a bag of butterscotch morsels, and a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Melt and mix everything in a pot on low.
When it is melted together serve with your favorite apple slices(always serve it warm).
Viola!!
Easy and Delicious
Make sure you have plenty of apples, the kids will keep coming back for this one.
This is a perfect snack for this time of the year. I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine.
You can also check out all of the great snack ideas on my Pinterest board Food and Snacks for Kids.
I think one of the cutest moments is when you see a baby or child experience something new that fascinates them. Those moments seem to happen often when I set up a Sensory activity. In our house sensory play can be fun, tasty, exciting, and of course messy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
When I'm thinking about Sensory play for a baby or Toddler I always think edible and safe. So for our Apple week, I thought what better than applesauce, apple slices, and a whole apple. Yum!! I hope you enjoy seeing Baby Bells many cute faces as she explores apples.
After a short time, I decided it might be easier for her to use a tray. As much fun as she was having, the container was about an inch to high for it to be perfect. So here is how she enjoyed her apple sensory on the tray.
Delicious!!!
Gotta love the applesauce dripping off her chin.
"Take that, if you try to take my tray away"
I hope you enjoyed our Toddler Apple Sensory Play, we enjoyed having you.
As a homeschooling mom living on one pretty small income, I am always looking for great deals. Those of you that have been around this blog for awhile might have already seen some of my posts on where I get most of my freebie packs for the kids schooling, If you haven't then stick around for awhile so you to can get tips and tricks on schooling children for very little.
To start off I am a BIG fan of COAH otherwise known as Confessions of a Homeschooler. I really like the curriculum that she puts out. She offers everything at great prices and it is great quality work. I have used several of her lessons already and am always excited when she puts out something new. So when I saw she had a new Artist study out, I immediately got busy, downloading and printing. You can still get The World's Greatest Artists 1 for free right now, if you missed out on 2. Speaking of that, If you haven't liked my Facebook page yet, please do, I often post freebies on my page each week.
I can't believe this day is here. It feels like yesterday when I was growing you inside of me. I would rub my belly and talk to you, tell you how much I loved you and how I would protect you. I knew you would be safe with four older brothers by your side. You are so lucky to have them, as they are to have you. I thank God everyday for adding you to our family. You are Gods gift to us, the most treasured gift anyone could ever have.
I have a few things I would like to share with you, and I decided I would write this today so that we can look back on this and always remember.
To start, when I found out you were a girl, I could see nothing but pink fairy dresses and sweet pastels around the house. I dreamt of you running through the flower garden smiling, with your hair flowing in the breeze. I also knew one day you would have the sweetest shabby chic bedroom, with a beautiful dressing station and perfect little reading nook to enjoy. You would always be my perfect little princess.
As the year has flown by, I've grown and realized so much more about how I want to raise you. I know now you might prefer cars over baby dolls, and even though I would love that shabby chic bedroom, you might prefer purple polka dots. I know that what makes you happy is what matters most of all.
As you get older I want you to always know that you can do anything that you want to do, you can be anyone that you want to be. It hit me this year, I am not raising you to be "The Perfect Girl" in someone else's eye's. I'm raising you to be great in your eye's, to have confidence and stand up for what you believe.
So baby, whether you choose to become an artist, a doctor, a scientist, a homemaker, a sports player or anything else your heart desires, I will always have your back. I will love and support you with all of your goals and your dreams. You will always be mommas girl.
Super Solar System!!! We have been having a blast this month, creating, searching, using our imaginations, and working with our hands. Come along to see us journey through space. If you missed part 1, it's a great place to start. We had an amazing small world play, a super galactic snack, made our own constellations, and so much more.
This is set-up #2 for our Solar System unit. If you missed out on part 1 go here to view it, you don't want to miss it.
Doesn't this look sooooo cool. We loved it, plus it was so easy and so much fun to make.
Usually we make our own play dough but the boys were given this huge 24 pack awhile ago and I thought "why not use that" (smile). So the boys had done their research and planned out what colors for each planet and set out to mix the play dough's together to get the desired color.
They mixed, and mixed or I should say blended them. Here Blakey is working on the sun. He makes the funniest faces. hehe!
Little B really enjoyed the mixing part, he continued after we had the planets done to make mountains.
Here is their finished product. Isn't it wonderful?
We let it harden overnight so the boys could use them and work with them, without them falling apart.
We used the Montessori Solar System cards from ETC, along with the control chart. I love the picture quality of them. (Sorry, no pictures). You can actually see the control chart hanging on the windows in our set-up picture above.
I set this up using our play dough planets and 2 sheets of large Black Construction paper and white crayon (you could also use chalk). This was great for them get hands on practice for knowing the order of the planets.
I always like to incorporate sensory play into our units. The kids love it and it lets me use my creative side as far as set-up. Sometimes I wonder who enjoys it more... For this unit I used Imaginext Space shuttle, Safari Space Toob and Moon Dough.
Even Miss Bells got in on the sensory play. She loved it. I did watch her to make sure she didn't try to eat it.
I wanted to have a lot of Moon dough for the kids so I used a bag and a half (1 1/2 bags) of Flour and 1 large bottle of baby oil. It worked out great and there was plenty to go around.
Towards the end Miss Bells wanted to get in it.
My recommendation is do this activity outside, moon dough is awesome and the kids love it but it can be on the messy side.
Those of you that have been joining me here at Natural Beach Living for awhile probably know by now, I LOVE the Amazing DK Pop out Books, in fact I think we have all of them. I know my family gets so much out of these books, they are filled with great information and are HUGE. If you don't own any, you might want to consider adding a couple to your home library, they are so worth it.
Mom's Favorite thing about her Solar System learning when she was little
I think it's safe to say it was definitely one of the boys favorite things too. I can't imagine putting together a space unit without including Astronaut Ice-cream. It was my favorite thing, I always thought it was so cool to be able to eat what the astronauts eat.
As you can see from the boys faces this was the perfect way to end our unit study, A night walk, looking up at the stars, Searching for Constellations, and enjoying Astronaut Ice-cream.
If you are planning a Solar System unit I have lot's of ideas on my Solar System Pinterest board, you should check it out.
