Leaves

This week we decided to abandon our B4FIAR books to study fall! We want to focus on different parts of fall each week and this week we decided to study leaves. Our life was very busy this week with family in town, a big youth event coming up, and a baby coming in the next few weeks so we only were able to focus two days on our study this week but since we got 15 fifteen fall books from the library we have been reading and talking about fall every day.

On Tuesday, all of our fall books came in to the library so we went to pick them up. We read a great book about autumn leaves and learned about many different types of leaves and also the parts of a leaf. We also worked on coloring and continued to practice writing our name.

On Wednesday, we went on a leaf hunt. We went to our park with our back pack and looked for all kinds of leaves. We found some on a vine, some that had already fallen on the ground, big leaves, tiny leaflets, leaves with smooth blades and leaves with jagged blades. We also found some buttercups like in the story, The Little Rabbit, so we added those to our back pack too. When we got home we examined the leaves with a magnify glass and pointed out the similarities and differences amongst the leaves. We also identified the parts. We then picked some of our favorites to use for an art project called leaf rubbings. We rubbed our crayon on paper with the leaves underneath and like magic the leaves showed through. This was so very cool to us and we learned it because the leaves have texture that this happens. Later that day we did an experiment with a balloon, vinegar, and baking soda that we saw on a learning show. This was almost the same ingredients we used in our hopping corn experiment so we knew why the balloon filled up with air- baking soda and vinegar make a gas.

Through the rest of the week and weekend we kept reading our autumn books and we noticed that our leaves we found shriveled a little more each day and our big yellow leaf that looked like a banana had turned completely brown and dry. On Sunday, we made our very own leaf man with pretend autumn leaves since fall weather has yet to hit us yet.

We may continue a few leafy things next week but we are excited to take a look at pumpkins! Some of the pumpkin patches open up this weekend and it's already feels like fall even if we haven't noticed it too much in the weather yet.