A Peek Inside Our Playroom: Fall Farm Dramatic Play

After a month of holidays, I just want to play! Not that we didn't play here over the last month, but with so many holidays back to back, we are just now getting into a Fall routine. And speaking of Fall, it seemed like a perfect time to set up a Fall Farm Dramatic Play theme in our play area. So come on in, take a peek inside our playroom and get ready for some Fall-themed fun at our farm!
When it comes to setting up new play themes I need it to be time and budget efficient. That means we repeat themes here--and why not? Every time my kids explore a play theme again, they bring new life and learning to it. I use what I have on hand and many of our resources and props cross over from one theme to another. Storage is always a work in progress so I can actually find the resources and props I want, but I like 2 gallon ziplock bags for flat and smaller materials and larger plastic bins for dramatic play props and costumes. I get the kids on board to create new props and materials because it's less work for me and more fun for them. I also make my setup a gradual process rather than a massive project. For one thing, this is what time and energy allows for right now and it also gives the kids a chance to explore and experience activities one at a time rather than being overwhelmed by so many new things that they end up not playing at all. And with this particular theme, I'm actually going at an even slower pace, intentionally adding in props that the boys will help to make and new activities that I will join in with them so that we can squeeze a bit more use out of one play theme before I transition to another.

In our month of endless holidays, we totally missed pumpkin picking season this year. Last year we spent an afternoon at a dramatic play pumpkin patch, and I knew I wanted to incorporate that into our Fall Farm this year. Printable resources for dramatic play are a great, time saving resource. I especially like the dramatic play sets from Pocket of Preschool and in this setup I used materials from both the Apple Orchard Dramatic Play and the Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play sets. I print and laminate materials once and store them between use.

So far our Fall Farm includes:

• a build your own pumpkin patch for planting and growing pumpkins
• hayrides
• pumpkin picking
• a snack shop
• a "face painting" station
• a kitchen for preparing and selling foods served in the snack shop
• a weighing station for pumpkins, gourds, candy, cookies, etc.
• a cashier's station with tickets for purchase, a cash register, receipt pads and order forms
• "cameras" for taking pictures
• handmade snack and food props (with more to come...)

At the Build Your Own Pumpkin Patch, our shelves our stocked with planting pots, a gardening shovel and rake, a watering can, "seeds" (I used rocks), "dirt" (I used pompoms and also a large piece of fabric to lay down on the floor as a garden bed, real mini pumpkins and gourds (you could make your own or use artificial ones if you prefer), and artificial vines. You can get creative with your props here, using what you have, making what you don't have.

S really liked putting the fabric down as a garden bed and then sprinkling "dirt" and "seeds" overtop. The photo at the head of this post is how his pumpkin patch looked once they had grown and were ready to harvest!

When it's time to harvest, guests can ride "tractors" (scooters--I later taped a photo of hay on top) to the pumpkin patch and pick their gourds and pumpkins. They can take them to the weighing station and weigh them. The boys especially love putting things in bags (I have no idea why!) and some brown lunch bags were perfect here.

They have also really enjoyed baking pies, selling treats and visiting the snack shop. I used some printables from the Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play Set I mentioned above and laminated different foods that they could velcro on to the snack menu each time they play.

We made the "caramel apples" using some foam decorative apples we had left from a few years ago. I stuck in some wooden craft sticks and we drizzled glitter glue over them to look like caramel coating. We made some "pumpkin cookies" using leftover felt shapes I had from last year, fabric paint and glitter for icing. I recycled some empty fruit cups and turned them into "applesauce" by painting the inside yellow and adding a laminated label from the Apple Orchard Dramatic Play set with velcro dots to open and close. Later this week we will be making model magic cookies and perhaps some other delicacies.

Our "face painting" station is just a laminated picture of face paints and some clean brushes. I might b adventurous after October 31st when real face paints go on sale!

This has given us a lot of "food for thought" as we begin our play adventure. Stay tuned for more additions and updates and until then...

Happy Playing!

Pumpkin Patch Playtime!

It's November 1st, and allow me to be the first to wish you a Happy Buy Your Purim Costumes and Dress-up Clothes at 50% Off Day! We don't happen to celebrate Halloween, but Autumn just isn't Autumn without pumpkins here. We [I] even [toiled and slaved and cursed and cried] in the garden to grown our own mini pumpkin and gourd. Yes. Only one. Of each. Costing me roughly a total of $54 when all was said and done, but worth every penny. I think. We also purchased some mini pumpkins and gourds, painted white pumpkins with acrylic paints, picked our own pumpkins at S's school field trip and needed an indoor way to have some playful and active fun yesterday while handing out [and eating] candy.
Introducing Pumpkin Patch Playtime! Whether you're looking to give those pumpkins one last hurrah today or trying to burn off some of the post-Halloween calories and energy, these simple activities are sure to please and simple to set up and execute at home or in the classroom.


Our Pumpkin Patch hosted a small selection of gross motor and dramatic play activities. You could include them all, add your own, or choose your favorites. You could do this outside if your weather permits, but it works just as well indoors given enough space.

The boys were invited as they came downstairs from their nap to take a hayride to the Pumpkin Patch. I used a small riding toy, but you can also use a cardboard box, bike/tricycle, scooter, skates or your own two feet! I used masking tape to make a path toward the pumpkin patch that would later double as our corn maze. If you have carpeting and are worried about tape, carpet safe tape options are available. I've never had a problem with masking tape as along as you remove it the same day. You can implement labels and sentence strips if you want to support a print rich environment.

Once they arrived at the Pumpkin Patch, the boys were greeted by the sight of artificial leaves strewn about the rug (you can also cut your own from paper or use the real thing outside). A couple of child sized rakes and a recycled brown paper bag were at the ready for raking leaves. If you have reservations about using rakes indoors, you could probably substitute in child sized brooms or children could use their hands or even tongs or tweezers to pick up leaves. If you have a larger group, this would be a really fun activity to do with a parachute and to use the leaves on the parachute to toss into the air before having the children rake and collect them.

The Pumpkin Patch itself was set up using artificial floral/foliage garlands I bought from the Dollar Tree earlier this year to use in our play sukkah as vines and our collection of pumpkins and gourds starring as themselves. You could use artificial/toy pumpkins, or even make your own by painting and stuffing brown paper lunch bags (as I did for our basketball game). At the Pumpkin Patch, the boys could "pick" pumpkins and gourds, fill up their shopping cart and bring them to The Pumpkin Patch Store (their kitchen set and cash register) to pay. You can get as detailed as you want here and make price tags, signs, etc. You can also keep it simple (as we did) and just go with the flow. S had the idea to use the pumpkins in the kitchen and make pumpkin cakes, pies and something he called "pumpkin juice" that I'm willing to try at least once to find out if I like it! He also wanted to use some brown paper shopping bags for carrying pumpkins and gourds, which became its own lesson in measurement, weight and structural integrity...

Both of the boys loved Pumpkin Basketball. S was quite inspired to try a real pumpkin in the game, but since we were inside, I put a damper on that one. Instead, I prepped some simple brown paper lunch bag pumpkin basketballs. I colored the bags with orange and green marker, stuffed them with tissue paper and taped them shut before smooshing them into a round shape. Alternatively, you could use actual balls and permanent markers to make them look like pumpkins. Everyone (yes, me, too) took turns having three tosses to try and make a basket.

These activities are meant to get everyone up and moving and active. When excitement and festivity are in the air (even and especially the day after), movement is a necessity. If you're needing a less active and quieter option or station, these DIY peg board geo-pumpkins are the way to go. They still encourage active engagement of muscles, strength and energy, but they are a bit more stationary in nature. This has been a favorite activity for S the last few years now, and this year Y got in on the fun as well. They hammered golf tees into a couple of our mini pumpkins last week for Table Time one morning. Yesterday, I set out the trays of rubber-bands and our pumpkin geo-boards. Y was able to loosely drape larger rubber bands over the pegs and S was able to make intricate shapes and designs.

We will likely give these gourds and pumpkins one last hurrah here as we explore the inside and maybe even do a little baking per S's request. But honestly, I'm pumpkin-spiced out and ready for what's next...Chanukah!

If you're gearing up for Chanukah as well and looking for a playful and educational way to bring some early math and literacy skills into your home or classroom, check out my Chanukah Counting Soup game on TeachersPayTeachers. It's a fabulous way to bring fun, festivity and a little bit of learning into your home or classroom this season.

And until then...happy playing!

Bring on the Pumpkin Spice, Autumn Apples and a Hurricane If You Must (An Updated Peek Into Our Playroom)

Shanah Tovah U'Mesukah from this
sweet little apple and honey bee!

 Ch-ch-ch-changes! S has returned to preschool for a new school year and we just finished celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Talk about busy, here! And that sense of the pace picking up is exactly what makes me feel like slowing down and stopping to smell the pumpkin spice. It's definitely still Summer out there (with a potential hurricane pending in the days to come), but Autumn is in the air (at least indoors). So whether you are hunkering down for a big storm, or just looking for some apple, pumpkin, or Autumn themed fun at home, we've got you covered!

With summer dwindling to an end, I began to make subtle changes to our play area. I realize I haven't posted in a while, and hopefully I'll get to backtrack a bit and share some great activities about sunflowers and bees that we did as part of our Sprout Scouts Playcamp. Our Nature Table is one of these new introductions. I set up a top shelf in one of our toy storage areas with a small world scene the boys could manipulate and explore. I included both natural loose parts (even the two mini gourds we managed to salvage from the squash bugs in our garden) and man made ones as well. The scene immediately drew both boys' attention, but it isn't meant to be merely a display--they are invited to play with it, add to it, change it and move things around the room at large for use in play and storytelling.

Speaking of storytelling, with school beginning and Rosh Hashanah starting just a few days later, I decided to spend an afternoon telling The Story of The Apple Star (available to print at Come Together Kids). S has seen this "trick" before but was still super excited to see the star magically appear inside our apple and Y was old enough this year to appreciate it as well. Nothing goes to waste in this house, especially not apples, so some of the results were used for snacking and some were used to fabric paint apple prints onto some new aprons for the boys to use during cooking and baking activities.

I strategically placed our toy Rosh Hashanah sets into our dramatic play area along with some toy apples and a makeshift felt apple pie play set. I rotated in some favorite Rosh Hashanah books and apple books as well. I find that the more subtle my play area updates are, the more they are appreciated. I rarely have to show the boys when something new is out, they almost always discover it with their usual excitement and glee! On occasion, S will ask about something that was out and got put away and I explain that it has been rotated out. If he felt strongly about having something back in the rotation right away, we certainly would, but usually it's just curiosity.

Our sensory table is a favorite area for both the boys right now. Our tree blocks made a reappearance along with some cinnamon sticks, toy apples, collected seed pods and objects found in nature and even the set of Seasons Dolls I painted last Winter. I thought S would get really into storytelling in this one, but he actually only played there once. Y loved it.

When I made another rotation a couple of weeks later and moved the tree blocks, natural loose parts and cinnamon sticks to the toy shelf, S was totally ready for small world play, carrying the baskets to the carpet and even inviting me and Y to play along! Sometimes location and setup is everything--you never know! That's why I always advice fellow parents and teachers that if an activity or setup does not capture your children's interest at first, either reintroduce it in a new setting or design or wait and try it again another time.

I'm also rarely glued to a singular vision of how I think my boys should or will play with things. I have my ideas and they have theirs--many times I am amazed and astounded!

As you can see, our Nature Table has shifted again. It's looking a little less like Summer and a little more like Autumn. Not everything is gone or different, in fact I intentionally returned some of the same objects as before in this new backdrop. I really couldn't help myself once I saw mini pumpkins and gourds go on sale, so now they have entered our small world play, infiltrated our dramatic play and kitchen set and even been turned into building blocks (at S's cue).



 They even showed up in our new "Autumn Soup" Sensory Bin, a lovely Autumn toned collection of dried beans and lentils along with some soup pots, empty spice bottles and toy kitchen utensil. I'm never completely sure my boys will take to a sensory bin I set up, but anything like dried beans, rice, lentils or corn is almost always a big hit. And yes, a big mess! But both boys are big fans of helping to sweep with the dust brush and dustpan I keep affixed to the side of our sensory table and one of them is even pretty good about keeping what's in the bin in the bin.







Needless to say, both boys have spent a great deal of time playing here in the past couple of days and hopefully it will continue to entertain them in the days to come, whether we get hit by this storm or not. A sensory bin filler like this is so versatile that even if this setup gets a bit stale, some funnels and scoops could be swapped in, perhaps some cardboard tubes and recycled containers, or even some Autumn shaped cookie cutters, and it would be like new again.

We're all about using and reusing what we have here and whether you're preparing for a big storm or just looking to add some Autumn themed fun into the coming days, here are some more activities that have kept us busy at play here over the last few weeks:



Playdough is always popular here! We used our usual recipe and added in some red food coloring and some cinnamon bark scent for this playdough invitation based on one of my favorite books, Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson. I also included leaves from deconstructed dollar tree silk flowers, our toy apples (these were from a craft supply store a few years ago), cinnamon sticks and tree circles. Both the boys loved this setup and S decided to turn the page in the book and "make another page!"

A great playdough invitation is certainly worth repeating or you can swap in some other accessories for another way to play on the same theme. In the photo below, we added in cookie cutters, dishes, the same apples, cinnamon sticks and playdough along with some toy kitchen utensils for a Playdough Apple Bakeshop.

 S loved playing with a DIY felt apple pie set his teachers made in school. I decided to surprise him (and Y) with their own version to use at home over Rosh Hashanah so they wouldn't miss the playdough too much during the holiday.  I cut out some pie crust colored circles and strips, added in a selection of small green and red pompoms and two sets of tongs (yay for sneaking in that fine motor practice). I also set out some empty spice bottles, toy baking utensils and even a pom pom filled honey bottle. Even now that the holiday is over, they both still love baking and delivering pies!

While I never got to posting before Rosh Hashanah this year, the simple apple crafts we did would be a wonderful Autumn activity (or you can store in the vault for next year).

The boys have really taken to using chalk pastels on our chalkboard wall and on black paper (as have I!) so I set out an apple shaped piece of black card stock for them to color and a larger frame cut from scrapbook paper to glue it on. It was so simple and such a cute way to add a little festive flair to the new school year and the Jewish New Year!

The boys also really love wet coffee filter art so when I saw a post in one of my Facebook groups with coffee filter apples, I knew it was something we had to try. I set out some apple colored washable markers and used masking tape to attach a flattened white coffee filter to two trays. The boys colored away but the most desired part of this activity is always the spray bottle! S loves the spray bottle! He helped spray both coffee filters and they were set to dry. I cut the frames out of felt and glued everything together with hot glue before hanging our stained glass apples in the window.

 Transitions can be challenging and also quite beautiful. Just as Summer days give way to school days, so, too, do those sneaky leaves begin to change color and fall (even while it is still upward of 80 degrees here). There is a wistfulness as the Sprouts Scouts pack away for next Summer, but having a set routine truly helps us ease into the Autumn season with comfort and even a bit of excitement. I've learned the value in planning less, slowing down and engaging more with the boys. Rather than filling every moment of every hour, I've introduced an activity theme for each week day.

Monday: Story Time
Tuesday: Art
Wednesday: Play!
Thursday: Cooking/Baking
Friday: Tea Party

The activity we do under each theme is not necessarily the same each week. Yesterday, I thought we'd go to the park for Play! day and the boys were totally engaged with some of the new playthings at home, so we stayed in and played together. Story Time might sometimes be a trip to the library and other times include storytelling at home. Art might be set up or entirely child-led. Our cooking/baking days sometimes take us to the store to pick out vegetables for Stone Soup and other times we bake for Shabbos or for our Friday afternoon Tea Party. Our routine will change when we feel ready for it to do so and I try to let the boys take the lead in our afternoons, especially when mornings are spent away from each other while S is at school.



This month of festive holidays and pending hurricane offer plenty of family time together, and while that is a bit like doing the hokey pokey with "The Real World," it is quite nice to be able to sit back together and enjoy this family time. Wishing our family and friends a Shanah Tova U'Mesukah, a happy new school year and those who may be affected, safety in the storm to come. We will be back with more details on our new play at home routine, some great Autumn themed fun and, as always, plenty of happy playing!

A Playtime Post: Pumpkin, Pumpkin!

You know those obnoxious people who start going crazy over all things pumpkin in the middle of July? I'm one of 'em! I love Autumn and I love pumpkins, and I don't care if it's not even Labor Day, I'm gonna start pumpkin spicing everything.
By September, we took an afternoon outing to my favorite local produce shop to pick some decorative pumpkins and gourds for our table...

By the beginning of October, although temperatures were still in the upper 80s here, I had concocted my own loom knitting pattern to whip up a couple of pumpkin hats for my own little bumpkins:

Maybe I'll just crank the AC up and let them wear these inside...

And yesterday, we accompanied S's preschool on their Fall field trip to a local farm to pick pumpkins!

I learned a lot on our field trip...

• Did you know the flowers on pumpkin vines that actually bare fruit are purple, not orange?
• Managing 20 preschoolers belonging to other people on a field trip was way easier than managing my own preschooler on a field trip--he literally turned into a pumpkin in the middle of a pumpkin field requiring me to football carry him back to the hay ride...
• If your preschooler refuses to put on a pumpkin hat you spent three days knitting to pose for a photo, you can bribe him with pretzels and then he will undoubtedly refuse the reward until you agree to take half a dozen more photos...
• Pumpkins come in all shapes as they evolve from seed to plant to flower to fruit...our adult vision may gloss over some of those incredible early stages of life as we eye the prize of a bright orange giant of a fruit, but you can be sure your little ones will notice and appreciate even the tiniest, most incredible signs of growth and life!

S was enamored with these teeny tiny little baby pumpkins. He really wanted to pick one but chose to leave them on the vine so they could grow into great, big pumpkins all in due time! I admired his fascination with everything from the purple flowers to the still-green pumpkins to the giant orange prize-winners and everything in between. We came home lugging one big orange pumpkin, one medium sized green and orange specimen, and a little green guy, along with two tuckered out boys ready for a good, long afternoon nap!

As tired out as we all were after the big morning, I was in the mood for some more pumpkin themed fun. While the boys slept, I cooked up a batch of my favorite stove-top playdough adding red and yellow food coloring to give it a lovely shade of orange and a generous dose of pumpkin spice for scent. After naptime, both boys dug right in to the playdough fun! Along with our playdough, I set out a laminated playdough mat of a pumpkin patch scene that I printed off for free from this great website. I demonstrated to S how to roll little balls into pumpkins, which he loved doing. He also took it a step further and began "smashing" pumpkins, which led to baking pumpkin cakes and pumpkin cookies until he noticed the bag of dried pumpkin seeds that his Safta sent last year from a pumpkin that grew in her garden. He asked if he could open the bag and use the seeds in the playdough, and while I hesitated at first, I decided to let him have at it. After all, how many years do I plan to save dried pumpkin seeds?? And with half a dozen pumpkins gracing our dining room table right now, there's plenty more where that came from!

S had so much fun using his fine motor skills to pour the seeds into a little dish, to pinch and pick up seeds as they spilled or fell on the floor, and pinching and poking the seeds into his playdough to "plant pumpkins." This is the joy of child led play and exploration! I, the adult, rolled little balls for pumpkins in a pumpkin patch, but S, a child, had a pumpkin patch, a full service bakery and a raised bed garden for planting pumpkin seeds! Y enjoyed teething on the pumpkin shaped cookie cutter...

S also loved using some laminated cards depicting the life-cycle of a pumpkin that I printed off for free over at montessoriforeveryone.com. There are a great variety of free printables here as well as some fabulous articles and resources for families and teachers who are inspired by the Montessori method. S used the cards both to retell the life-cycle sequence and to talk about things we had seen on our trip that morning. Then he asked to read a book from our shelf, Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington as he continued to play with the playdough.

That was all the pumpkin themed fun we could squeeze into one day! There are so many great activities you can do with pumpkins, and if you're looking for some more, you can revisit some of our favorites from last year. S really wants to bake a real pumpkin cake with a cooking pumpkin he bought with his Tatty and I have a few other ideas up my sleeve for the weeks to come. Until then...

Happy Playing!

Autumn Theme: Pumpkin Day!

We woke up on Wednesday morning to November's first rainy day! This was just the kind of cozy Autumn day we needed to inspire some great indoor play and exploring. Several week's ago we visited a local year-round farmer's market in our area and my little one picked out a couple of sugar pumpkins for our nature shelf. I already had big plans for these sweet little pumpkins and today was the day! Pumpkin Day!

This book has great illustrations and a lot of
great information about pumpkins! It inspired our
own pumpkin day today.

My son also loves reading and rereading
this book. It has gorgeous illustrations
and very simple language to introduce
the life cycle of a pumpkin.

We started with a really fun Table Time activity--hammering golf pegs into a pumpkin. I first saw this done in a pre-k classroom I substitute taught in before my son was born. The teacher did the activity using pushpins and rubber bands to create a "geo-pumpkin." This was a fabulous activity for older children and to make it more toddler-friendly, I used golf tees, plastic hammers and then introduced some yarn for weaving and wrapping around the pegs. While many of my Table Time activities are designed to be used independently or with minimal adult intervention, this is one that does require more active participation and support. My toddler LOVED it! In addition to being really fun, this activity also promotes fine and gross motor development and hand-eye coordination with hammering. Spacial-relational skills are developed as well as mathematical concepts when children explore geometric shapes with the yarn or rubber bands. Of course there is also scientific learning and language development as you talk about the explore the changes that occur in the pumpkin through hammering golf tees or inserting pushpins. And since no pumpkin goes to waste here, we brought it back out later to cut open, observe and explore from the inside out.

My two year old needed help to get each peg started You could assist alongside your little one(s) or pre-hammer holes for the pegs ahead of time.Plastic hammers were plenty strong enough to get the job done!

Later it was time to explore the inside of our pumpkins. I cut in half lengthwise and we talked about the seeds and pulp inside the pumpkin. I provided a couple of plastic forks for scooping out seeds.

He had a lot of fun transferring seeds from the tray back into the pumpkin halves! I predict a transfer tray activity with our seeds once they are dry...

I roasted our sugar pumpkins for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

 Later this afternoon we will be making pumpkin pie!

Meanwhile, my little one joined me in the kitchen with his step-stool at the sink to help rinse and wash the slimy seeds. This is a great sensory activity in and of itself! Once they are dry, we will use them for more sensory play. In addition to transferring activities, there are some great ideas presented here. And of course, you could also save dried seeds for planting in the Spring or for roasting and eating!

Pumpkin seed sensory play

Happy Pumpkin Day and as always, happy playing!