Fall Picture Display Using Fall Paintings

The leaves are falling and starting to change colors and we've had some beautiful days in our neck of the woods. Fall is my absolute favorite season and because of that I love decorating our home for the Fall. If you have been hanging out on my blog for awhile now you will also know that I love photography. I have all these cute fall photos of my kids from previous years that simply sit on my computer. So I decided I needed to figure out a way to display them with my Fall decor.

 I wanted to somehow incorporate the girls fall art work with the Fall photos. With a little brainstorming and a walk through Michael's Craft Store I came up with our Fall Painting Picture Display. We have been reading books and talking a lot about Fall and all the changes that come with it. Ahead of time I set up an invitation to paint using Fall colors and canvases.

My 5 year old immediately started to experiment with different strokes. She did circles and then ended up with lines.

My 3 year old seemed to focus more on the specific colors, announcing every time she switched colors.

I did encourage them to cover up all the white spots since I knew this would be used as the photo back drop.



Once they were done and the paint dried I attached some Fall colored ribbon around the top of the paintings and tapped it to the back. I also used mini clothing pins and attached those to the top of the ribbon.

Ahead of time I had printed my favorite Fall photos of the girls from last year.  I wanted to be able to change out the photos year after year so the clothing pins were added to be able to display the photo without having to secure/tape it down.

Now its easy peasy to change it and every year I can display the previous year's favorites!

The girls loved paining on the canvas and once they were done it was super easy to complete!

The final products looked great when placed together with some of our Fall decor!!

There you have it! Our Fall canvas painting picture display!

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5 Foam Apple Math Activities

I bought these foam apples in the dollar aisle (I think it was at Target) and decided to put to them use for some fun math activities! 

1. Patterning- The girls have been talking a lot about patterning lately. They have been making patterns in their drawings and in their everyday play. So I asked them each to make a pattern and my 3 year old made a red/green pattern. 

My 5 year old decided to make a  red/green/green pattern. After they put their patterns together I asked them to tell me the pattern they made. Saying the pattern out loud helps to reinforce the concept and it's fun for them to say it as well! 

2. Number Sequencing- Ahead of time I wrote out the numbers 1-10 on stickers and stuck them to each apple. I then mixed them up and asked my girls to place the numbers in order. I gave my 3 year old the 1-5 numbers and my Kindergartener I gave 1-10. ( My 5 year old easily did this so if I were to do it again I would add more numbers to make it more challenging) As you can see this obviously can be adapted for different developmental skill levels. 

3. Number Matching- We used the numbers again for this activity. This time I pulled out our gems and had the girls match the correct number of gems to the corresponding number. Again, you can add higher numbers to challenge kids who have mastered the 1-10.

4. Puzzles- I think the girls had the most fun with these "make our own puzzles". I cut out different shapes in one apple and used a different apple as the puzzle base.

I ended up adding numbers to the pieces when my 3 year old put it together because it was a little difficult for her without them. It was easier for her when she could follow along with the numbers.

5. More/Less/Same- We explored the concepts of More/Less with this next activity. I had my 3 year old sort the red apples into a pile and the green apples into the other pile. I asked her to count them and tell me which one had more and which one had less. She then matched the More/Less cards to the corresponding pile of apples.

We ended up not using same but there's several ways to add that the next time around. Another idea I had was to make a graph with the apples and graph by color and then count them.

There really are endless ways to use these foam apples for math concept play!

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Back To School Picnic

Recently I posted about our painting picnic and how much fun we had with it. I love the idea of having a "theme"picnic and that got me thinking about having a "Back To School" picnic with the girls. 

This year I have a kindergartener and a preschooler. Sometimes the end of summer days leading back to school can be a crazy time of squeezing in school supply shopping, dr. appointments, and last minute summer trips. I know for my family there was little time to really talk about the upcoming year with my girls. Our back to school picnic was the perfect time to do just that. 

It forced us to set aside some time and slow down. I asked both my girls what they were most excited about for the new school year. It was my 3 year olds first year in preschool and my 5 year olds first year in kindergarten so we talked about what they can expect in terms or daily schedules and routines. 

Of course I planned ahead and packed some fun "Back to School" goodies to share on the picnic. 

I made little apple tags and used Traders Joe's Cookie Butter and Apple Sticks for our snack. 

They were a hit! 

We also read several books about starting school and Kindergarten. Reading books about these subjects was a great way to get them talking about what was to come.  

I found these foam school buses from the dollar aisle at Target and we used them to make a simple "Back to School" art project. 

The girls found the letters to spell their name and stuck the letters onto the school bus. They then used glitter glue to decorate their school bus. Easy and the mess stayed outside! 

Peeling off the foam sticker letters and using the glitter glue pens serves as great fine motor practice for little hands! 

You certainly don't need to have a picnic to talk about the upcoming school year with your kiddos but it definitely was a fun and simple way to kick off the start of the year! 

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