All About Fall!

The past couple weeks have been full of wonderful fall activities. From raking up leaves to getting ready for Halloween. 
We visited Emma Krumbee's with my mom to pick apples and see their Scarecrow Festival. On the way we sang the Scarecrow Song we learned last year:

(To the tune of "I'm A Little Teapot.")
I'm a little scarecrow raggedy and worn
I wear a hat and my shirt is torn
When the crows fly near I scream and shout
AWAY FROM MY GARDEN! NOW GET OUT!

The kids loved everything about the festival. They saw all the scarecrows, played in a rope maze, played in a giant hay stack, picked a basket full of apples and more.

On the weekend, our family went to the Twin Cities Corn Maze and spent the day playing in hay bails and in a corn pit! The kids picked out their Halloween pumpkins we'll be carving soon.

Some of the Halloween crafts we've been doing include making witches, bats, hand-print spiders, and pumpkins, and Ava did her first grid art!

I also printed off some pumpkin numbers and number words from Lakeshore Learning's website that Ava loved. I had to print three sets because she kept asking to do more!

Other things we've covered include volcanoes, geysers, and planets. Ava picked out some glow-in-the-dark planets to hang in her room. She is really getting into planets and stars and space. She especially loves looking at the stars and planets outside right now with her dad as he explains which is which.
We also talked about Columbus Day this month. While we were all taught Columbus was a hero that did a great thing by "discovering" America, there are actually many inaccuracies in this story. I want our kids to know the real history and not the happy fairytale we all were told in school. At our kids' young age, I mostly ask them about how the Indigenous people who lived here must have felt about someone coming over to their home and telling them what to do, to which their responses are,"mad," and "sad."

In other news, Noah read his very first words last week! He excitedly read "am," "go," and "at," and a couple others. He knows most letters now so I was telling him the sounds some make. I would say 'A' makes the "aaaa" sound and 'M' makes the sound "mmmm" and the rest he put together on his own. He'd say them separately and then faster and faster until he read it. He was so thrilled with himself but he would get quite mad when I got excited with him. Haha! It was clear he was doing this for HIM, not for me. Which made me even more proud.

We've been playing games in the van lately to spot letters in signs and say the sounds they make. In fact, I've noticed a lot of learning happens in the van on the road! Reading signs, finding letters, and lots of questions. It seems being buckled in staring out the window at the world going past gets their little minds turning and wondering! Homeschooling, unschooling, car-schooling, whatever we call it, it's capturing those opportunities that make it so natural and interesting. And keeps me on my toes!