Autumn Theme: Playroom Set-up and Intro to Process Art

"Look, Mommy! It's YELLOW!"

It's November and we're just now getting to our Autumn play theme. Where we live, this time of the season is actually far more conducive to experiencing the season change than its onset in September! The temperatures have finally dropped a bit and the leaves are changing beautifully outside. It's the perfect time of year to bring the learning and indoors out and the outdoors back inside! I was inspired to use this theme as an opportunity to explore through process art. Process art is a term that refers to artistic methods that are process-focus rather than product oriented. With children, process art is very much child-led where the adult provides the space, medium and materials but little more. The "artist" chooses how to use the materials rather than trying to complete a project with specific guidelines and directions. Both types of art exploration have value to children. Arts and crafts projects that have specific instructions and steps to complete help young artists learn to follow step-by-step instructions in addition to building skills around fine motor development including cutting, pasting, squeezing, spacial-relational concept, and drawing the lines, strokes and shapes necessary for writing and more. Here's a peek in our playroom and learning activities so far. We will continue to explore this theme indoors and out over the next few weeks. In addition to our art activities, we will also learn through play, literacy, science, sensory play, cooking and more!

Our Nature Observation Station is set up with favorite fall finds and Autmn-themed materials. As we explore outside, we're bringing little treasures home to our own yard and some indoors for observation. We will be using some of our collection for art activities as well.

I saw this DIY fine motor activity here and decided to fish out one of those old wipes containers I'd been saving "just in case" to try it out at home. My toddler LOVES it! He practices opening and closing the container, counting the leaves and putting them through the opening in the top over and over again!

Our felt wall has been transformed into an Autumn tree! The tree trunk is made from brown felt and the leaves are fabric leaves with a velcro dot on the backside to help them stick. My son's favorite part of it is using the basket to collect the leaves, carrying it around the house and "shopping!"

On a warmer afternoon, we brought our Autumn themed sensory bin out to the backyard. It's filled with dry oats, cinnamon sticks, cups and scoops for filling and pouring and some artificial apples and leaves. 

 We're observing Autumn weather patterns this month with a simple chart and stickers. This is both fun and educational to do and helpful in the area of preparing a routine-oriented toddler for changing outwear requirements when we go outside!

I have a collection of favorite Autumn themed songs, action rhymes and fingerplays. For easy organization, I keep my themed songs and rhymes like this on index cards connected to a metal ring. If I have props to go with it, zippered pencil pouches make a great way to keep it all together and ready to go. Join me in a future post to learn some of our Fall favorites so you can sing and say them at home!

We took our learning and exploration outdoors this morning for a visit to a nearby park. My son made his own game and physics experiment finding leaves to push down the slide! After some playtime on the playground, we went on a walking scavenger hunt to collect more signs of Autumn. We talked about the colors we saw, the sizes and shapes of different leaves and nuts. We observed squirrels running around and a couple of ducks resting in the pond. We collected a variety of objects from the ground in the tote bag I brought along. I also packed a roll of masking tape to make us each a sticky masking tape bracelet for collecting little leaves. This activity was taken from The Toddler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. It's a great Autumn activity and could be done in the Spring/Summer as well using wildflowers. We used some of the colorful leaves we found in this process art activity based on reading the book Leaf Man by author/illustrator Lois Elhert. 

Happy Autumn and Happy Playing!

Mad Science Monday: Walking Water Experiment

It's Monday, which around here means it's Mad Science Monday! We're finally delving into our Autumn theme for the month of November. After last week's color mixing explorations as we learned about the story of Noach, I had one more color mixing experiment I wanted to do today. Besides, Autumn is one of Nature's best examples of color mixing in action!

Walking Water Experiment
I've done this experiment over and over again with several groups of preschool students over the years. It's one that is exciting each and every time! This morning while my son ate his breakfast, I set up our Walking Water Station:

I filled three glasses with water and several drops each of red, yellow, and blue food coloring. In between each of the glasses with water, I placed 3 empty glasses. (I've seen some folks fill these with uncolored water as well, but I find that slows the experiment down quite a bit). I cut six strips of paper towel and placed one end of each in each of the cups as pictured above. Immediately you can already see the color travel up the paper towels as they absorb water from each of the cups filled with colored water. The results take a bit longer to see (unless you choose to help it along by squeezing the paper towels to soak up water more quickly). Although this experiment was one that was more observational for my toddler, children can help in the preparation and set-up. 

After a morning of homeschool activities and a visit to the park, we came home to the colorful results! As the paper towel absorbs the water from each of the filled glasses, it travels across the strip until they are too full of liquid to absorb anymore and they drip into the intermittent glasses. We ended up with all three secondary colors, orange, green and purple!







Happy Mad Science Monday and, as always, Happy Playing!

Noah's Ark Theme: Part 4

We wrapped up an amazing week of learning and play in the theme of Parshas Noach. Within the story of Noah's Ark, there are so many sub-themes that could easily stand alone! Animals are a fun and incredible topic to explore with children, and I usually devote a few weeks to a theme like this one rather than cram into part of one week. The animals on Noah's ark still made an appearance in our activities, nonetheless, particularly gaining a lot of attention from my toddler in the theme related discovery basket I set out and in our teivah sorting activity. Building the teivah could also become a theme in and of itself through building with different materials at home and other construction related activities. I made sure to have some building toys, hard hats and tools accessible this week for theme related independent play, and many an activity was spent over the last few days with me wearing a yellow hardhat because my son requested it!
We shifted our focus this time on the colors of the rainbow and some basic concepts of clouds and rain. It was fabulous to watch my son learn through art, science and hands-on exploration. Perhaps the absolute highlights were watching how excited he was each day and engaged in many of the activities. As an added bonus, he walks around the house singing the Rainbow Song now!
We read Eric Carle's Little Cloud together and had some sensory fun with shaving cream to make our own Little Cloud. To help weave in our learning about color mixing, I added a squirt of red and blue paint to the shaving cream. I offered a plastic fork for mixing and playing but also let my little one know he could get his hands in there, too! He does not mind getting his hands messy altogether, but seemed to favor the fork overall and also likes to be able to clean off his hands independently as he feels ready. For that reason, I also provide a wet wash cloth when we work with messy materials so he doesn't need to leave the activity to intermittently wipe off big gobs of paint or shaving cream or glue. With the red and blue paints, he experienced hands on the mixing of our final secondary color in the rainbow, purple! This led us right into the final strip of our rainbow texture collage.

For some more purple themed fun, read Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon!  Now, having explored each of the colors individually, we had some playful fun with all of the colors of the rainbow.

I saw a lot of cute ideas using playdough and pipecleaners to build a rainbow. Somehow, I lacked a set of pipecleaners in each color, so I checked my craft stick stash--also missing colors! Guess it's time to restock, but for now, I was inspired to create an Invitation to Play with the Colors of the Rainbow using loose parts. 

He had a blast! 

After sticking the foam beads inside the ball of sparkly purple playdough we made earlier last week, he used the craft sticks to cut up his "challah" and even made a brachah on it!

Then he used the foam beads for building (and knocking down) towers! I confess to breaking my own rule and buying those beads from the dollar store over a year ago with no plan in place for them. They have sat in a container for that long and today, my son showed me what to do with them! I suppose it was worth the dollar!

We took our easel outside with paints in all three primary colors for some color mixing process art. Mixing to brown is a learning experience, too! Although this time he didn't quite reach the brown stage!

We usually reserve our Friday mornings for Field Trip days. I find that focusing the "homeschool" aspect of our week into four days allows us both more time to unwind at the end of a week and for me to plan for the week ahead, wrap up anything we didn't get to and/or prepare for Shabbos. Plus, having a fun outing in the morning helps us spend quality time together before my husband and I get busy preparing for Shabbos to begin. This week we visited our Science Museum, which has a fabulous exhibit for children ages 0-5 all about colors and light! He always has a great time here, and we were able to incorporate the themes of animals, weather, rainbows and even building while we made our way through the museum!

Join us this coming week as we start exploring the theme of Autumn. Until then, happy playing!

Noah's Ark Theme: Part 3

Time to add the blue!

We're sailing right along on our exploration of the story of Noach this week with some more colorful fun! As we continue on our investigation of the colors of the rainbow, we are taking a hands-on approach to learning how primary colors mix into secondary colors in a variety of ways. We even took to the kitchen for a tasty theme-related snack...

In addition to our orange experiment with red and yellow water, we tested out color mixing with paints at the easel. 

Next it was time to see what happens when you mix yellow and blue. I set out a gallon sized sealed ziplock bag with a squirt of each color prepared inside. This is a great sensory experience and mess free to boot! He loved squishing around the colors until we ended up with green!

 For an extension on this activity, you could read Little Yellow and Little Blue by Leo Lionni!

Finger painting in a bag is a great activity for your tabletop and equally wonderful hung on a vertical surface. Even very little ones can enjoy some independent playtime while you're busy in the kitchen if you hang a sensory bag like this one on your refrigerator or a cabinet door.

Speaking of keeping busy in the kitchen, there are a lot of wonderful parsha related snacks when it comes to the story of Noach. Between the themes of animals and rainbows, the options abound. I've seen rainbow colored challah, cupcakes, cakes, animal shaped sugar cookies and just think of all the calorie-laden and sugary treats you could create with colorful cereals, jello and candies. But after a month of holidays and overindulgence, we were ready for something a bit healthier this time around.

With Rosh Chodesh right in the middle of the week, I wanted to add a festive theme-related dessert to our family dinner. I decided on rainbow fruit cups and animal cookies. The rainbow fruit kabobs are absolutely lovely and could really beautify a party table or even Shabbos meal. Nonetheless, sharp wooden objects are not so toddler-friendly, so we opted for the rainbow in a cup option. In the past I have also done this activity with paper plates and trays of fruits and/or veggies in each color of the rainbow for little ones to build (and eat!) their own rainbow.

One year we even did a rainbow salad! The options are endlessly colorful and need not be full of dyes and sugar to be fun and tasty. (And don't worry, I'm planning a lavish and colorful dessert for Shabbos this week!)

Rosh Chodesh: Welcoming the New Jewish Month

The Jewish month of Cheshvan is known for rain!
This umbrella project seemed to also fit in with our Noach theme this week.

We are big on creating meaningful family traditions and celebrations here--even (and especially) over the little things! The Jewish calendar runs on a lunar cycle, and Rosh Chodesh (literally the head of the month) is welcomed with the new moon and holiday status. It is a special day (sometimes two days)--particularly for women--to celebrate the blessings that will, G-d willing, be bestowed upon the month ahead. Additional prayers are said and many have the custom to eat a nice meal, dress in nicer clothing, or otherwise give the day(s) a bit of a celebratory feeling.
Tuesday and Wednesday of this week marked Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan. With the month of Tishrei and all of its many holidays now behind us, I wanted to give Rosh Chodesh an extra feeling of joy--particularly since the month of Cheshvan has no holidays at all! Here's a peek at how we honored the occasion this month and some of the things we have done to celebrate on Rosh Chodesh in the past.

I set out a festive Table Time activity this morning, lit a scented candle and popped on some of our favorite Jewish music to set the tone for our day ahead. We had some challah dough we brought home from a wonderful playgroup we attended at our synagogue yesterday. Today in honor of Rosh Chodesh and Parshas Noach, we decorated it with some rainbow sprinkles!

He wanted it to be shaped like a braid! We worked together on rolling three little balls of dough into "snakes" and shaping a braid. He may or may not have consumed several handfuls of sprinkles instead of his toast this morning.

We begin our morning homeschool routine each day by giving tzedakah (charity) and singing our morning prayers and songs. On Rosh Chodesh, I add a special song about the new month:

The time moves on so quickly

See how the days fly

________ [previous month] is now over

It's time to say goodbye

Goodbye, goodbye to _________ [previous month] (repeat 3x)

And welcome _______! [new month]

A basket of instruments added some extra fun and excitement to our usual morning daavening (prayers).

Watercolor painting a paper plate umbrella for the rainy month of Cheshvan!

On some months we've invited over a friend for a special Rosh Chodesh themed play party. We pick out special paper plates, blow up balloons, make a special snack and pull out some favorite themed activities and crafts. Here's a blast from Rosh Chodesh past...

Snack time!

Even new month celebrations deserve party hats & balloons!

"moon dough" playdough to honor the new moon

"moon rocks" made from crumpled tinfoil--really great for a game of Moon Rock Basketball

Chodesh Tov & Happy Celebrating!

Noah's Ark Theme: Part 2

The Noah's Ark themed fun and learning continues here. As we explore the colors of the rainbow, I am strategically also placing in hands-on learning and experimenting with how primary colors mix into secondary colors. While we began our texture collage yesterday with the red and yellow sections, today we explored what happens when you mix red and yellow to create orange!

Today, I set out two pitchers of water, one dyed red, one dyed yellow.

We poured red water into the bottle until it was about half full and yellow to fill the other half. I sealed it tightly and then (mainly just for the fun of it) it was time to shake it up! Sure enough, we made orange! Adding color to water play activities with tools like measuring cups, empty containers, funnels and droppers is a great way to add some fun to this already wonderful sensory activity and experience color mixing. Since adding all of the colors at once generally results in brown here (an equally important educational experience though it may be), I usually provide two primary colors at a time. To extend this particular activity, I provided a bit of yellow and red paint at his easel for some color mixing process art.

What Goes Where in Noach's Teivah? In Noach's teivah (ark), there were three separate levels. Noach and his wife as well as his three sons and their wives all resided on the top. The animals all lived in the middle. The bottom level was reserved for food/garbage. Activities like this are a great way to introduce the important mathematical skills of sorting/categorizing and can also be a fabulous tool for teaching early spacial language skills--in this case, the concepts of top, middle, and bottom. 

We started by sorting plastic people, animals and food into their designated levels.

We repeated the same activity, now with pictures cut from old magazines of people, animals and food. Older children could participate in cutting out magazine pictures and if you also teach about the concept of garbage being stored on the bottom level, crumpled up pieces of tissue paper or scrap paper/newspaper could be used.

Now we have a wonderful visual reminder of today's activities! It's hanging at child-level for the artists' appreciation. 

My little one is loving this song about colors right now!

Noah's Ark Theme: Part 1

This week's parsha (Torah portion) is Noach, the story of Noah and the ark. This story can be very child-friendly and can expand to include a variety of learning/play themes and concepts including...

• Animals
• the mathematical concepts of pairs as well as practicing sorting and patterns*
• the teivah (ark), boats and water transportation
• rainbows, the order of a rainbow, the science behind a rainbow, prisms
• colors, color-mixing, primary and secondary colors
• Rain, weather, the water cycle

*I will delve a bit deeper into some activities associated with these skills in a later post

Learning and playing about the story of Noach can include reading together, dramatic play, building activities, arts and crafts, science experiments, fun snacks and more! Here's a peek at what we've done so far...

Dramatic play with our Parshas Noach Discovery Basket

There are a lot of children's books and texts to teach about the story of Noach. Some are more conducive to snuggling up on a lap and listening and beyond that--when it comes to introducing more of the detailed aspects of the story I want to give over to my son-- I utilize props he can enjoy and explore. As he played, I talked about some basic points of the story of the righteous Noach being asked by G-d to build a teivah to protect him and his family as well as a selection of animals from the pending mabul (storm/flood). I explained that Noach needed to collect pairs of both "Mommy" animals and "Tatty" (father) animals, and demonstrated this through having two of each kind of animal in our discovery basket. I did go as far as to say that from kosher animals, he took seven pairs of each kind and from non-kosher animals, he took only two. These numerical concepts are a bit advanced for a two year old, but we are already in the process of teaching him about the difference between kosher and non-kosher animals. To demonstrate how long the mabul lasted, I counted all the way to 40 for him. (He was quite impressed and clapped at the end!)

I went through a few other key points of the story--the end of the rain, the return of the dove to announce safety and dry land, the beautiful miracle of the rainbow G-d sent to show His promise to never again send a mabul, and how Noach and his family built a mizbeiach to show their gratitude. I verbally introduced one of the most important morals learned from this story--one that we try as parents to instill even now in our little one--that even when others are acting in a way that is not nice (as the people of Noach's time were), we must always act kindly as Noach did.

As part of learning about the rainbow, we are working over the course of this week on a texture collage. I squeezed a bit of alphabet learning into today's portion of the activity and introduced the letter "R" for rainbow, red...

...and ribbon! With this age group, I provide materials in only one color at a time. I chose to add a thin layer of glue to the designated strip prior to setting out the paper, but you could assist/direct a toddler to paint on a thin layer of glue if you wish. Older children can work with more than one color at a time and even follow a key (I have a dot of each color on the right side of each strip) or a model to complete their rainbow. You could even set out a seven sectioned serving platter like the one pictured below (these are often available at Dollar Tree) with one color in each section and glue with a brush in the middle. In addition to building skills in sorting and teaching the order of the rainbow, this is a great fine motor activity for little hands and the different textures are a wonderful sensory experience.

Our open play time involved some Mega block teivah building and a variety of puzzles, stacking and sorting materials to teach color recognition.

We focused our science lessons this week on precipitation and the water cycle as well as a fun sink/float activity.

We're watching how clouds form and rain falls!