Autumn

"Leaves are falling all around,

On the housetops, on the ground. 

Leaves are falling on my nose,

On my head and hands and toes."

The fall colors here have been gorgeous!  I promised the kids that we'd go back to the arboretum once the trees started changing, and we managed it on a perfect day.  The trees had so much color, and only a week later a lot of them had lost their leaves.

We were much more methodical on this trip.  I actually came prepared with paper, pen, and baggies, so we could label our samples.  Once at home, we laminated and labeled some of the leaves, and then hung all of them on our paper tree.

Check out these huge Catalpa leaves!  I thought it was interesting that this tree had the biggest leaves, but wasn't a very big tree!

We also collected a whole bunch of buckeyes, AKA horsechestnuts.  I was hoping we could eat them.  It turned out they are poisonous, though.  Bummer!

Here are some close ups of the colors we found.  The laminating was an experiment because I wanted to see if the leaves would stay nice longer.  I should have realized, though, that I was cutting off their oxygen.  Now, two weeks later, the laminated ones are all brown, but still nicely shaped.  The others are shriveled, but still have most of their color!

Today I hosted a little group with a few kids Annie's age, and we learned why leaves change color in the fall.  That really left an impression on Logan, and he was very creative with his art project to show just how that happens!  We also went outside and played in the leaves some.

We've been doing this little group for a few weeks now and it's going well I think.  At this point, I'm not sure how I feel about co-ops or what my plans are for the future with them; this fits with our goals for now, though.  It's mostly a play group with some fun learning activities.  There are four kids in it (except when it's my turn to host because my boys gets to join in those days) and we actually drop the kids off, so most of the moms get a break during that time.  I'm liking the chance to get to know other families better, one of which also homeschools, and it's always nice to see other ideas for inspiring learning!  

On to another topic.  This isn't autumn related, but we did do it during autumn!  :)  I found myself feeling very patient one day last week, so we finally made the sun.  It was very messy and big.  It's dry now, but I haven't been brave enough to try to remove it from the big ball we used to form it.  Maybe we should add another layer for strength first...

Here are some after pictures of my messy kiddos.