Pumpkin Play Dough

This is absolutely the best smelling activity I have done with Hannah to date.  We made pumpkin play dough as one of our fall activities.  I have made play dough lots of times from scratch when I taught kindergarten in Korea and the kids loved it.  However, I hadn't for Hannah until today.  She gets play dough for presents every once in awhile so we have always just  used regular play dough. Its really quite easy and you probably have all the ingredients on hand.  This is the basic recipe I used.

Playdough

2 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 packages of kool-aid (optional)You can also add food coloring
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
2 cups boiling water
4 Tbsp of oil
Mix the first 4 ingredients then add the boiling water and oil. Knead it together until its isn't tacky.   Store in a zip lock bag or air tight container.

To make pumpkin play dough, I omitted the koolaid and added orange food coloring.  I also added 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.

Ready and waiting, Andrew and I wonder if the kids would eat it.

Hannah's pumpkin.

Ethan has learned the word play dough and was right there ready to jump in.

He likes to squish the play dough when I make little balls for him.

Hannah wanted to make long snakes.

Hard at work, only snack time pulled her away.

This play dough feels so silky smooth.  I forgot how much I like playing with it too.

Thanksgiving Tree

This afternoon we made a Thanksgiving Tree.  I wanted to do something with Hannah as a spring board to talk about the things we are thankful for over the next week leading up to Thanksgiving.  Its a pretty simple craft using very simple materials but it will be a great visual reminder of how much we are blessed by God.

Leaf cutouts, rocks, and a glass of sticks, and some willing participants.

I used a rubber band to hold the sticks together and  Hannah filled in the space around with rocks.

Ethan getting in on the fun too.

Daddy wrote out some of the things Hannah said she was thankful.
Her  list included  Mama, Ethan, and her soother.

I have more leaves to add as the week progresses.

I think this will make a great Thanksgiving tradition and a pretty centerpiece.  I may need more branches.

Linked to: 

I Can Teach My Child

Sun Scholars

MOM TO 2 POSH LIL DIVAS

No Time For Flash Cards 

1+1+1=1

Fun on Friday

Wow the weekend flew by quickly.  Surprising since Andrew was gone for work until this morning.  Usually, those days feel so long.  Here is what we did on Friday:

Coloring fall leaves.

This is one of Ethan's favorite activities.

Felt apple tree.

;

Shape puzzles: I pulled out the circle, square, and triangle for her to do.

Puzzle Master

Counting Practice

Hannah enjoyed this activity and is showing more interest in numbers.

My favorite picture to date. This is Ethan's head.  I love that she put on eyes, a nose and a mouth.
Afterwards, she wrote Ethan on the lines below.

Letter I Wrap-Up

As Letter I has come to a close, its time for the wrap-up the activities that Hannah and I did together.  This was  a hard letter for me.  I haven't been feeling great and its hard to concentrate when I have a headache, Never-the-less, Hannah and I manage to get way more done then I  thought.  We will be taking a short break before starting J and K in order to do some Thanksgiving and Fall activities.  But before that have a look at what he did for the Letter I:

We explored our letter box together.

Ethan is very interested in letters right now and points them out all the time.
I love the bruise in the center of his head.

Ice ball fun.

We did two I crafts: Ice Cream

and our iguana.

As well as several  insect activities.

What did you enjoy most?

One thing that makes me smile...

My kids are not terribly good eaters, nor do they sleep well, like most kids they are loud and messy.  One thing they do well is make me smile.  After looking through the pictures I have taken over the last month I noticed how many pictures I have of them playing well together.  They play very well together.  In fact, there playing right now as I type this in the next room.  Have a look and see if you too will smile.

Are you smiling?

I is for Iguanas and Iceberg Play dough

These are the last of our I activities, and probably Hannah's favorite too.  She worked through them very quickly and I was surprised that we had finished it all in a relatively short period of time.  First, we played with some iceberg play dough.

We used some white play dough, fake ice,
and our arctic animals that we used in our ice balls.

Beached whale.

It was very cold for a poor lonely polar bear.

Hannah decided we needed some water for the whales to swim in
and finally the polar bear found a friend in the walrus.

Iguana craft (Totally Tots).
We added a dewlap (chin flap) and some spines to our iguana.

The glue master.

Hannah held up the scrap of paper and said she needed to glue on the eye brow.

Kisses from the baby iguana.

Letter matching.  

Letter disks from A-H, and the 2 small letters for each letter from A-H.

Looking for the letter.  When she talks about E and F she counts how many legs it has to see if it matches.  

That's right G and C are not the same.

This is good activity to practice letter recognition.  It was also very good review for Hannah.  She enjoyed the challenge.  

What letter activities do your kids like to do?