October- Autumn Activities

 Hello families and happy autumn!!! We hope you had a wonderful summer and first month of school. The transition back into routine can be challenging, but we did it!! Fall is such a beautiful time of the year, and we wanted to share some fun, developmentally appropriate activities you can do with your child during the autumn season!! Here are some ideas:

-Take an autumn walk and have your child collect items. Then have your child count and sort the items found (big/little, small, medium, large, longest, shortest, biggest, smallest, etc.) Discuss the changes in seasons from summer to fall with your child and how it is different. Also have your child draw what they see/hear on the walk and discuss what the weather is like.

-Make a fall collage with items found on nature walk. On the nature walk, discuss safety behaviors.

-While on the walk, name the types of trees your child sees, have your child collect leaves and pattern with the leaves and discuss the changing of colors on the leaves. Also allow your child to paint with the leaves on paper. Have your child look at the differences in shapes of the leaves and discuss how many points they have, etc. Also allow your child to create leaf prints (have your child put paper over the leaves and color the leaf print with crayons).

-Take a trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch and name vocabulary that your child sees (tractor, pumpkin, apple tree, parts of an apple, parts of a pumpkin, etc.)

-Cut open a pumpkin and allow your child to clean it out. Help your child count out the seeds using 1-1 correspondence. Cook the pumpkin seeds and allow your child to taste them.

-Create home-made pumpkin slime or pumpkin spiced playdough.

-Make applesauce with apples from the apple orchard.

-Visit the farmer’s market and teach children about the fruits and vegetables they see.

-Read autumn themed books and ask WH questions: who, what, why, where, etc.

-After trick-or-treating, have your child sort his/her candy into piles that are the same. Read the candy labels to your child (this is a snickers, etc). Have your child count out the candy and see which candy they have the most of, least of, same of, etc.

 

Missouri Early Learning Goals addressed:

-Exhibits creativity and inventiveness/shows confidence

-Exhibits self-awareness and self-confidence

-Uses fine motor skills with purpose and control

-Practices safe behaviors

-Listens for different purposes, develops and expands vocabulary

-Applies early reading skills

-Uses concepts of print, uses writing as a means of expression/communication

-Uses number to show quantity

-Uses language to represent number of objects (more/less, greater/fewer, equal to)

-Explores shapes in the environment

-Explores physical properties of objects and materials

-Explores properties of earth and sky

Pumpkin slime:

https://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/how-to-make-pumpkin-slime-with-real-pumpkin/

Pumpkin playdough

https://thekindergartenconnection.com/pumpkin-spice-play-dough-recipe/

Enjoy!!!!!!