Homeschool/Preschool Week #6

Homeschool/ Preschool 

Week #6

This week we are in full swing Fall...

Here in Ohio, we are starting to wake up to those cool, crisp mornings. The sun is rising a little later each day and the leaves are starting to change colors and fall in the breezes.

I am finally starting to take advantage of these days and really get into our Fall theme. I want to soak up as many days outdoors teaching Little E as much as I can before the frost and days of too cold weather come. It is such a beautiful time of year. Even if it only makes me want to hold on to those lazy summer nights a little tighter.

All the letter "A"s...

We are finishing up our letter A week. I have been trying to think of as many "A" words that I can to teach her while we are out and about. Apple, Acorn, Airplane, Ants...

We've wrote, traced, and done our letter finds almost everyday this week.

She has also been practicing her short a sound.

Alphabet...

I found a wonderful alphabet puzzle at the Dollar Tree. It is super colorful and has nice, big letters that are easy to recognize! We have a printed off sheet with the alphabet and we used that to compare and match the letters. She did so great with this. I mixed up all the pieces and had her search for each letter/puzzle piece in order. The pieces are different colors, so if she seemed to get stuck or struggle finding the correct letter, I would give her a "hint"...like "The piece you need is a purple piece."(there are about 5 of each color) so maybe only A, M, R, V ,Z would be purple. 

Scavenger hunt and nature...

Last weekend we spent the day at Papaw's and took advantage of the 734 ton of trees and fallen leaves on his acre backyard. The girls ran around around rolled in the leaves all afternoon. They gathered leaves and tried to find as many different ones they could. We found big, small, red, orange, green, skinny, fat, round and pointy ones!

I even found a cute, free  Printable Scavenger Hunt over @ MomDot

It is designed for smaller children. I think we found everything except the "green beetle" that Little E kept insisting we needed to locate!

(It was an image(artwork) on the page, not on the actual list. LOL)

Graham Cracker Haunted House...

We also made our very own "haunted house". I can't talk about this enough! We went over each color and we did work out a pattern with our candy corns. She counted each candy chip as we placed them on her little house and talked about the different shapes we needed to build our house. There were so many fun ways to work in a lot of learning into this project. And, it was fun! You can see more about that over here >>>DIY Haunted House

I hope you all had a wonderful and productive week!

Check out even more fun Fall activities here>>  More Fall Activities @ A Mom's Impression.

As always, Don't forget to go back and check out our previous weeks through my blog and leave us any tips or ideas you have came across this week! We love learning!

DIY~ Halloween Graham Cracker Haunted House

Our Preschool "creepy" (completely edible) Haunted House

Are you a Momma looking for a fun, creative project to make with your littles?

Are you looking for something that isn't going to take up your whole day just getting it ready?

(I know the attention span of a four year old! If prep time is more than 10 minutes...She's out!)

Then, this project is for you...and your little!

I too love a good craft that we can make together. There are always so many "grown-up" projects going on everyday, it's nice to slow down and do something together with them.

I found this idea over on Pinterest, of course!

FoodJunkie~ DIY Haunted House

Her houses turned out much more appealing than ours but that's fine with me.

Sometimes it's the process not the end result.

Little E was totally into this project from the beginning and well,....so was I.

We made a few changes and made it our own. Which, I believe is the whole point in this. You can take the basics and make it anyway you'd like. Each one is different.

Our Haunted House!

What we used: 

Graham Crackers(any brand)

Chocolate frosting

Orange frosting(bottle type)

Variety of candies(we had Reese's pieces, sprinkles, and candy corns)

Base, board, or plate(something to build on)

Zip lock bag or piping bag

We started with parchment paper to cover our cardboard base. I had her help me hold the sides and I piped the chocolate frosting to get the walls to "stick". This does take the finesse of pressing hard enough, and long enough for it to grip but, not so hard that you crush and collapse your crackers! It is a trained skill. LOL

Once we got the four sides on, the roof just kind of sat on top. I did try to pipe some frosting along the eaves to get the effect of it being attached.

After that it was pretty much sprinkle, candy and frosting mayhem!

We had a blast and it was quite sweet! Literally!

Luckily, this entire project is completely EDIBLE! I know, I know! Bonus!

I love finding these cute, little, quick craft ideas! There are so many fun ways to spend time together and maybe even learn a new craft. I love learning new things and hope to teach my littles to love learning. Even, just making a graham cracker haunted house!

We hope you enjoy and will try to make your own "Haunted House"!

What is your favorite Halloween craft?

My Homemade Slime...FAIL! (How NOT to do it!)

The Slime Nightmare

Let me just begin by saying, I am not a scientist! I am however pretty confident in my creative, DIY, Pinterest, Momma skills...until now!

It started out great. Little E wanted to make "slime"(thanks to the annoying commercial/ads posted at the beginning of, every. single. Youtube. video!)

I began by doing a quick...Pinterest search of...

How to make homemade slime

Y'all, there are seriously 100s of recipes! With borax, without. Shampoo, dish soap, cornstarch, contact lens solution, Epsom salt, shaving cream, Elmer's glue, glitter, food coloring, liquid laundry detergent...it goes on and on!

Just look <<HERE>>

The biggest factors for me were: 

A) What is the safest for my four year old, and

B) which recipe do I have all the ingredients for.

We started out with the simplest one I found.

Slime with Cornstarch

1c water(heated but not boiling)

3to 4 drops of food coloring

(mix those together)

2cups cornstarch

(slowly add to water mixture)

slowly begin to "work" mixture with hands until cornstarch dissolves and mixture becomes..."slime"

Sounds pretty easy, right???

This has got to be in the top 10 of grossest, weirdest things I have ever put my hands into.

Seriously...I'm a Momma. I have kneaded bread, made meatloaf, touched poop, vomit, dirt and a few un-identifiable substances!

This was worse!

I have NO idea, WHAT we made!

It was not slime!

It kind of had the texture of chewed gum you'd find in your kid's pocket after the wash but before it has been heated and dried. Add in a little grit from the dirt and lint that is now wrapped up and became a part of it.

One more close up pic....

Now...On to recipe #2!

Or as I like to think...almost slime. 

Slime with Epsom salt and Glue

4Tsp Epsom salt

4Tsp warm water

(combine)

in a separate bowl

8Tbs Elmer's glue

food coloring(2 drops)

combine and add to Epsom salt mixture

Again, work mixture together with hands until "slime" is made

Now, This one started out great! We thought we had finally gotten it! Real slime!

We has all the ingredients.

We had done everything just like it said.

And the "slime" was actually starting to form and feel like slime!!

Although there seemed to be a ton of extra "blue water" that the glue just wouldn't soak up. No matter how much we dipped and tried to work it into our slime.

I let Little E give it a try...

She LOVED it....for about two minutes!

And then, I don't know if it was the air or just that we didn't get all that water absorbed but it started to harden.Like first into a putty texture, then a dry playdough...then just a big, dry, gritty blob...

Like the cotton candy that sits out and gets air!

Hard. as. a. rock.!!!

I have no clue what we are doing wrong!

Making slime cannot be this hard!

Have you ever tried either of these recipes?

What works best?

I'd love to know of one we can easily make that really...works!