We continued our celebration of leaves with Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall.  Then, we did wet on wet watercolor painting.  Wet on wet watercolor painting is done in Waldorf schools, and we love to do it every week on our painting day.  

In preparation for our painting, we soak good quality watercolor paper in water for about 5 minutes.  Then, we dab off any excess water with a sponge and place the paper on our painting boards.  While I am setting out all the supplies we sing a little painting song.  Now we are ready to paint.  On this particular day, we use our red and yellow watercolor paints to color our papers.  The most beautiful part of wet on wet watercolor painting is the way the colors mix and move around on the paper and the paper seems to just shine with color.  I believe this is one of the most purely joyful ways for young children to experience color.  My children have always absolutely delighted in watching the colors dance across the paper.  The colors can be soft and light or deep and dark.  When we are done and our papers are filled with color, we let them dry.  Later, I cut the watercolor paper into leaf shapes to decorate our playroom.

Yesterday, we read Fall Leaves by Doretta Holland.  It is illustrated by Elly MacKay.  This book is magical!  It mixes poetry and science together perfectly as it describes and explains the changes we see and feel and smell and touch outside in autumn.  As we read the words of this book and looked at its gorgeous illustrations, we felt that we were truly experiencing fall in all of its glory just as the little boy and girl do!

After reading it, we made maple leaf sugar cookies with a maple glaze on top.  I only had four cookies left to take a picture of because the kids gobbled them up so fast!

Later in the day, we went outside to rake up and jump in big piles of leaves.  After all the jumping, we had to throw them up into the air and let them fall down all around us.  This is one of our favorite fall family traditions that we do to celebrate leaves.
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Of all the leaves in the world, I think maple leaves are our favorites!
Today, we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert.  It is the story of a boy and his favorite maple tree. After reading the story, we made salt dough maple leaves.  We always use a very simple recipe. 

4 cups flour
1 cup salt
​1 1/2 cups water

We mixed up all the ingredients in a big bowl.  Then, we spent some time kneading the dough with our hands until it came together and was no longer lumpy, but smooth.  Then we just rolled it out and used a maple leaf-shaped cookie cutter to cut the dough.  We lined the leaves up on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 250 degrees for 3-4 hours.  After the leaves cooled, we used acrylic paint and glitter to decorate.

Sometimes the simplest and most classic stories are the best. 
Sometimes the simplest and most classic crafts are the best.

Today we read We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger.  This is a sweet variation on the classic American Folk Song, "Going on a Bear Hunt".  After reading it, we went on our own leaf hunt and came back home to do one of the simplest and most classic leaf crafts around, leaf rubbings.  We used our beautiful Stockmar Block Crayons to create rubbings of the leaves we found. 

​It certainly was one of the simplest and most classic ways to celebrate leaves!  

Every day before we read our seasonal picture book aloud, we celebrate in another very important way.  We do Circle Time.  During Circle Time, we all gather together to sing songs, recite poems, and do finger plays and movement games.  I have intentionally chosen specific songs, poems, finger plays, and games to perfectly match the seasonal theme of the books we are reading.  We follow the same Circle Time for the whole week, always following the pattern of Circle Time and then read aloud time. 

Circle Time is another simple and joyful way we can give our children time to celebrate.  It is another opportunity to notice and cherish God's truth, goodness, and beauty.  It helps us to experience the seasons and the rhythm and the order that God created in a way that all of us can more fully understand and be a part of. 

It is easy to see that children love to sing and dance and move around.  These are some of the most natural ways they express joy.  So, it makes sense, to make singing and dancing and moving around a part of our every day celebrations. 

And let us not forget what we are really doing here.  We are celebrating every day things every day.  This gives these every day things (like leaves and squirrels) a feeling of importance.  We are taking the common, the simple, the every day things, (that many people just look past and fail to notice) and making them big and important and special.   
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Here is how we do Circle Time in November to celebrate leaves. 

Invitation
 
Come to the circle where dreams are found,
Take my hand let’s dance around,
Halla, halla, halla, hello,
Round and round the circle we go.

•  All join hands in a circle.  Move around in a circle while continuing to hold hands.
• Fall to the ground, all sitting in a circle at the end.

 
Opening
 
Winter is white.
Springtime is green.
Summer is golden.
Autumn aflame.
Four lovely seasons to have in a year. 
Sing them by color.  Sing them by name.
 
 
In the Autumn garden, scarlet evening glow.
Apples ripening, brightening, ripening, brown the hazels grow.

• Autumn, Wynstones Press

 
 
Leaves
 
 Come little leaves said the wind one day,
Come o’er the meadow with me to play.
Put on your dress of red and gold,
Summer is gone and the days grow cold.
Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the fields they danced and flew,
Singing the soft little songs they knew.  

• Children can put on red, orange, and gold play silks like capes and dance around while reciting this poem.

 
 
Five Golden Leaves*
Five Golden Leaves hanging from a tree, dancing golden in the sun,
Then along came the wind and he blew through the town, whoosh!
And one little leaf tumbled down to the ground.

• Continue with 4,3,2,1. 
• End with “and the last little leaf tumbled down to the ground.”
• Start with holding up 5 fingers.  Take away one at a time. 
• Make a big wind blowing sound for “whoosh”.
• From Sing a Song of Seasons by Mary Thienes Schunemann

 
 
Little leaves fall gently down,
Red and yellow, orange and brown,
Whirling, whirling, round and round,
Quietly dancing without a sound,
Falling softly to the ground,
Down and down and down.

• Children can pretend to be leaves whirling, quietly dancing, falling softly, down and down… until they are all the way down on the ground and sitting.
• This is the perfect poem to end Circle Time with.  They will be sitting silently ready to hear the story.

 
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*All of the *starred* segments are songs and can be sung to their proper tunes.  Most of the songs I use during Circle Time are from Sing a Song of Seasons by Mary Thienes-Schunemann.  I highly recommend purchasing this Songbook and CD (all in one nicely bound spiral book).  I got mine from Bella Luna Toys for $24.99.   
 
*All other segments are to be used as poems, finger plays, or movement games.  Most of these come from A Child's Seasonal Treasury by Betty Jones and Wynstones Press books: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spindrift, and Gateway.

*I have tried to give simple ideas of how to move to many of these, but feel free to create your own motions.

"Everything is yellow
and red
and orange
all over
all around
right in the middle of Fall.

But remember it
because soon...
the yellow
and red
and orange
will be gone"

Today we read In the Middle of Fall by Kevin Henkes.  These words inspired us to find a way to remember the "yellow and red and orange all over all around" even after the world has changed to gray and then to white.  So, we made painted and glittered leaf prints to hang up in our playroom.  They will help us "remember it"!  Thank you, Kevin Henkes for your gentle reminder to us, to savor and then remember the beauty of fall.

 Oh, what a beautiful month!  and Oh, what a beautiful book!

My children know that there are just some books that actually make me tear up while I am reading them.  And this is one of those books.

After reading this book during our Circle Time, In November by Cynthia Rylant, we took our first November Nature Walk this morning and collected some beautifully colored leaves. 

Oh, what a beautiful day! 
​Happy November!

In our home, we read a seasonal picture book every day during our circle time.  Each week has its own seasonal theme, so all the books we read during a single week are connected by one overarching idea.  But the main point is, I read a seasonally themed picture book every day to my children.  

I believe with all of my heart that reading aloud picture books every day is one of the most important things I do as a mother and homeschool mom.   Of course, it builds our family connections.  Of course, it gives my children beautiful language patterns to furnish their minds.  Of course, it gives them good ideas to think more deeply about.  But is also strengthens the idea that we celebrate God and His creation every day.  Reading a seasonal picture book every day is probably one of the easiest things we can do to foster a family feeling of celebration.  Because, I believe we should be celebrating, noticing, savoring, and delighting in God's truth, beauty, and goodness every day.  And that is exactly what we are doing when we are celebrating.  And that is exactly what we are doing when we are reading aloud a short and sweet picture book that celebrates the seasons.

I was thinking about all of this as we put away our Halloween decorations, yesterday, November 1st, and getting out our Thanksgiving decorations.  This includes putting away our Halloween books, and pulling out our Thanksgiving books.  It is just another way to show our children that every month is special, every month is worth celebrating.  It is just another way to mark the passing of time and the changing of the seasons.  And it sure does work.  My children absolutely delight in seeing all their favorite books again.  They have created such fond memories of all those Thanksgiving books that we have not seen for a year now.  It is like they are at the same time getting a new gift and reacquainting with an old friend as we set them around our home.  Everyone stops what they are doing, pretty much, and starts looking through the pages.  They begin remembering and enjoying once again.

So, I would strongly recommend two simple things to anyone who is looking for easy ways to create a feeling of celebration of the seasons, a celebration of God and His most magnificent creation:
1.  Read aloud seasonal picture books every day
2.  Rotate those picture books so that Christmas books come out in December, winter snow books come out in January, Valentines books come out in February, spring themed books come out in March...I think you get the idea!