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.
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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. 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. Here is how we do Circle Time in November to celebrate leaves. Leaves |
AuthorHi, I'm Allison! Wife, mother to four sweet babies. Archives
March 2019
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