Fall Playdates

Adley and I started up our themed playdate group again this fall-- this time with a few new friends! Adley really looks forward to these gatherings and asks as soon as they are done, "When is our next playdate?" I'm thankful we have such a great group of friends to meet with. Here are some photos from our first two playgroups of the year. 

APPLE PLAYDATE

The first playgroup was held at our home. We started out the morning by stamping with apples.

Then, we went outside to gather some "apples." In truth, I spread yellow, red, and green colored Duplos around the yard for the kids to collect.

After the kids picked up the "apples," they sorted the apples into the correct container according to color. This activity was easy for the kids. Their only challenge was making sure not to plow into one another as they ran around the yard!

Back inside, we sang an apple song along with a Youtube video, ate a fall snack, and read Dr. Seuss's Ten Apples Up on Top. After reading the book, I had the kids stack apple blocks on the ground, just like the characters in the book balanced apples on their heads. One of our little playgroup friends even started making patterns with his apple blocks, turning every other apple upside down. All of the kids enjoyed counting how tall their towers were.

HALLOWEEN PLAYDATE

As we've done each year, our playgroup met for a Halloween party at the end of October. All of the kids wore their Halloween costumes to the gathering. Adley had chosen to be Owlette from the show PJ masks. We already had most of this costume in our dress-up bin, so it was easy-peasy!

My friend Lauren began the playdate by reading the book, Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Then, she had supplies for each of the kids to make their own square pumpkin. They turned out so cute!

Next, we went outside for pumpkin bowling. Some of the kids (Adley included!) really tossed the pumpkin high through the air. Thankfully, we didn't have any exploding pumpkins in this game!

After the game, the kids got a chance to trick or treat. Each child sat in a play pop-up tent with his or her candy. The kids took turns traveling to each tent to trick-or-treat for candy. It was so cute watching them do this! The tents were such a fun idea.

We sure love our playgroup friends!

October Events

 CACTUS JACK'S CAMPFIRE

At the beginning of October, our family joined my sister's family at a cute "campfire" event sponsored by our county comissioner. The event had a petting zoo, multiple games, live music, and a barbecue dinner. The most unique activity was the armadillo races.

Ian volunteered to be one of the race-helpers. My friend Andrea assisted as well. Their armadillo ended up winning-- it was quite fast!

Adley picked up one of the event coloring books.

All the kids really enjoyed the petting zoo. There was a nice variety of animals-- sheep, llamas, donkeys, ducks, goats, chicken, and super speedy pigs.

The kids only thought the BBQ sandwiches were so-so, but we adults enjoyed the food. Thankfully, the kids' meals were free anyway!

The kids DID thoroughly enjoy their s'mores desserts-- flame-broiled by hand (ha!).

CORN MAZE

Later in the month, most of our big family group attended our church's corn maze together. We split up to walk through the maze, since, not surprisingly, the kids went at very different speeds. I ended up following Cody, Jaden and Ian.

It wasn't an easy maze to navigate, and our group was actually the last one out! We made it out with a solved puzzle though, thankfully, as this earned us a piece of candy! 

After finishing the maze, the kids enjoyed playing all the games on the grounds-- corn hole, soccer, using the slingshot, and running in the hamster wheels. It was a beautiful day to be outside and a fun event to do with family.

Letter Activities

Now that Jaden and Cody are back in school, Adley and I again have time to focus on her letter-learning activities. Adley was very excited to jump back into this and eagerly asks each week, "What letter are we learning about NOW?" Here are a few of our latest activities:

LETTER C

Each week, we start by saying the new letter sound and learning to write the letter. We've written our letter of the week on a large white board, traced it in paint or flour, or simply written it with markers of various colors. I also like occasionally using this Letters of All Sizes practice sheet.

 

Then, we always create a new page for Adley's tactile alphabet book. This particular week, we painted and cut out cookies. This letter page fit well with the book we read this week called The Cow Loves Cookies.

Adley wanted her cookies to have "pink chocolate chips."

Another day, we did some activities with coins. First, we talked about the differences between pennies, dimes, nickels, and quarters, and Adley practiced sorting a pile of coins.

Next, we did some coin rubbings.

Adley's favorite coin activity was looking at surface tension by dropping water on top of the coin. She was pretty impressed with how much water each coin could hold.

Finally, we made cloud dough and searched for coins hidden inside.

Because C also stands for cars, we drove toy cars into parking lot spaces filled with various letters. At first, Adley named the letters as she parked each car. Then, we put tape on the cars and had Adley match the car to the correct parking space.

Dipping cars in paint and making paint tracks was also a hit!

LETTER G

For her letter G tactile book page, Adley loved using our stash of glitter. She created quite a colorful letter page!

On our first day of letter learning, Adley and I always try to read a book that matches with the letter we're studying. If we don't have a particular book on hand, we LOVE being able to find just about any book either as an e-book from our library or as a read-aloud book on youtube. This week, we watched a youtube reading of The Gingerbread Man. After listening to this book, we took turns hiding gingerbread men around the house for each other.

Our activities this week also included a science experiment-- Do grapes sink or float? At first, we discovered that grapes sink to the bottom of our glass. But, if we add enough sugar....

(a LOT of sugar!!)

...we can change the density of the water, and viola-- the grape floats!

LETTER O

When we learned about letter O, Adley cut a bunch of orange tissue paper and construction paper into small squares.

We used most of the orange squares for Adley's letter book, and she created an all-orange collage with the rest!

Then, we created a owl from paper plates. We used brads for the wings so they could actually move. I think Adley chose red for her owl because that's Owlette's color from PJ Masks.

We spent another morning doing Outdoor Math activities (may be a bit of a stretch to fit with letter O, but it was a great way to get in some fun math practice!). First, we did an activity reviewing the concepts of big and small. Adley chose an activity card from the pile that would tell her to find or do something with a big or small object.

Here was something small Adley found that could fit into her pocket.

Here, she is pretending to lift something big.

Then, Adley had to fill in this number chart by finding and counting outdoor objects.

Our garage recycling bin came in handy too!

During the week, Adley and I read a book together called Inky the Octopus. It was based on a true story of an octopus in New Zealand who escaped from his aquarium and is believed to have gone into a drain pipe which took him out to sea. I had never heard the story before and enjoyed learning a variety of new-to-me facts about the octopus. First, the plural of octopus is in fact octopuses, not octopi. Additionally, I learned that octopuses don't actually have tentacles. Tentacles only have suckers near their ends, so octupuses instead have eight arms. Gotta love it when learning with Adley teaches me new things too! Adley wasn't quite as impressed with these facts, but she did enjoy making an octopus and decorating it with Cheerio-suckers!