{Playing Through Autumn Day 28} Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders

One of the hot topics associated with autumn in our house is the migration of all the local birds. The tot is absolutely fascinated by birds, and lately we've noticed that there haven't been as many around as usual. Try explaining to a toddler that her beloved feathered friends have taken a vacation south - she just can't understand why they would leave! There are a few birdies left in our neighborhood, and plenty of squirrels too, so we decided to put out some food  for the critters that remain, which made us all feel a lot better.

Cookie Cutter Bird Feeders

What You Need:

Toasted bread

Cookie cutters in various shapes (we went with autumn shapes, of course!)

Peanut butter (or soy nut butter)

Vegetable shortening

Bird Seed

Yarn or pipe cleaners

Procedure:

Toast bread. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes in the toast. Poke a small hole at the top and string through with yarn or pipe cleaner. Smear the toast with peanut butter mixed with vegetable shortening (this keeps the peanut butter from sticking in the bird's gullet). Gently press the shapes into the bird seed. Hang outside for the birds to enjoy!

{Playing Through Autumn Day 25} Leaf Collecting & Pressing

We're going on a leaf hunt! We're gonna find some yellow ones! And boy...did we ever! I have been looking forward to collecting leaves with the tot since last autumn, and this year we really hit the jackpot!

We headed out to our favorite park on a perfect, sunny fall day. I have to brag on my kid just a little bit - she is a pro at finding gorgeous fall leaves! Pretty soon our bag was filling right up!

Once our bag was filled to the brim, we headed home to check out our findings. We had quite the stash!

Next, we laid out a huge piece of contact paper, sticky side up, for pressing our leaves. 

Helpful hint: Determine how much contact paper you want and cut it from the roll. Then, fold it in half and only take the backing from one half of the paper. Tape down the whole thing and go to town with the leaves. When you're finished, remove the backing from the other side and fold it over. This makes it so much easier to line up, and it helps to ensure a good seal. 

We had collected so many leaves that we ended up doing two huge sheets of contact paper and having enough left over to get a nice little sensory basket going. The tot was so proud of her creation that she showed it off to anyone who would look. I thought it was so beautiful that I ended up hanging it up in the living room of our house, where it can properly be admired by all who come to call.

{Playing Through Autumn Day 21} Pumpkin Patch Adventures!

All autumn long I look forward to visiting the pumpkin patch, and this year it was especially meaningful, as I got to share it with a wonderfully curious, stop-and-smell-the-flowers kind of kid. Though we did visit a pumpkin patch last year, L was not yet walking and so her ability to follow adventure wherever it led was a bit limited. This year, however, we had been talking about our trip for over a week, reading books about pumpkins and pointing them out everywhere we went. I was so excited to share this experience with her, in fact, that I woke up at six a.m. on the morning of the trip - and we didn't even venture out until after her afternoon nap!

Upon arrival at the patch, L did pause just long enough for an obligatory photo op before trundling off to check out all of the farm animals and kiddie attractions. For a moment there, I thought we might have to remind her of why we went there in the first place - the pumpkins, of course!

We hopped onto one of the tractors heading out to the pumpkin fields - finally, we were going to search for our pumpkin!

My curious little adventure seeker headed out into the fields right away. She of course wanted the first pumpkin she touched, which would have been fine except for the gaping hole on the underside. We convinced her to move on and sure enough, after that lesson, no one pumpkin was a good as the next one!

Finally we managed to narrow it down to just one perfect pumpkin. We hopped back on the tractor and got ready to head home - but not before a quick photo op with the big winner for the day. Victory!

Of course, getting the glorious pumpkin out to the car was only the beginning. We had to make sure our find made it home safely, of course!

{Playing Through Autumn Day 18} Autumn Discovery Basket

Discovery baskets (or bins) are fantastic for open-ended play: just fill up a basket with any number of materials and present them to a child - she'll take it from there! I have been having a lot of fun presenting L with various discovery bins over the past several months, and of course I couldn't let autumn pass me by without letting her get her hands on some of the best things the season has to offer: in this case, miniature pumpkins, gourds, and fabulous red Indian corn.

I decided to put the items in a wicker basket rather than a plastic bin (which I typically use) to carry on the natural feel of the gourds and corn. Actually, L had helped me pick these things out at the market a couple of days before we did this activity, and she was so surprised and happy to see everything again!

She especially loved the corn - we talked about the bumpy texture and the crinkly stalk. She even tickled my nose with it!

After the initial exploration, L took emptying and refilling the basket with all of the items. She has been very into counting lately, so I used the opportunity to work on counting with her, using one-to-one correspondence.

As the activity began to wind down, we also learned something new about gourds: if you drop them, they bounce!

We both loved this activity! It was so simple and yet presented us with so many opportunities for language, math concepts, and sensory experiences. 

Have your kiddos had a chance to experience some of these fall items? What else would you add to your own discovery basket?

{Playing Through Autumn Day 8} Sound Scavenger Hunt

Getting outdoors is one of the best things about the cooler weather of fall, and I love to find ways to get L connected to the world around her. Lately she has become very aware of the different sounds she hears around her on a regular basis. That kid can hear a train, plane, or barking dog long before I do. It's actually kind of impressive. To capitalize on this interest and to help foster her awareness of the world around her, I created a sound scavenger hunt for us to try at a local park.

I printed up this list, trying my best to predict what we'd be most likely to hear on our hunt. Turns out I was pretty close, with the exception of other kids playing, because it was a wet and chilly morning and there weren't any other kids there! (Helpful hint: I printed this out on card stock, so it was much more durable that regular paper for L's tiny hands. The added bonus was that it held up in all the moisture of the wet air that morning.)

L was listening closely, and it didn't take us long to hear lots of birds and cars. 

In fact, there were trees absolutely brimming with birds. I guess maybe they had more sense than we did and were trying to stay dry! 

And she's off! Soon after, we also had the good fortune to hear an airplane, a flock of geese (awesome!) and leaves rustling in the trees. Of course, we also got the pleasure of hearing a crunchy leaf on the trail:

Perhaps the most fun, and somewhat unexpected, sound we had the good fortune of hearing was L's feet splashing in the giant puddle we encountered on the trail. In our family, there is ALWAYS time for puddle jumping!

The entire family got in on the action of listening for new and different sounds, and it was a roaring good time indeed. L has been holding on to that sound list for several days now, which is proof enough that she had a fabulous time.

How do you get your kids connected to the world around them?

For the Birds!

One of L's many current obsessions is birds. She loves everything to do with birds. She loves pointing at them, shouting out in glee when she hears one twitter, and watching them zoom away when she comes running.  The girl is crazy for anything with a beak and wings! I wanted to capitalize on her love of feathered things, so we recently made a super simple bird feeder using only an empty milk jug, a length of ribbon, and a handful markers.


I used a box cutter to make a large opening in the front of a gallon milk jug that had been washed out and dried. Then I handed it over to L for her expert decor.  We used washable markers which were great for this project, as the colors are bright and showed up nicely on the opaque jug.  Then we headed outside to string it up with ribbon in a bush in the front yard.

Welcome, birds!

First we scouted out the perfect spot to hang the feeder.  I tied it up with a short length of ribbon by the handle.

Once we had determined where we wanted the feeder to hang, I pulled it down so that L could help fill it up with bird seed.  We talked about what might come visit our feeder (maybe a friendly squirrel of two might even show up!) and about how we would come back out and check on it often so that we could keep it filled up.

Now that the feeder was nice and full of delicious treats for our neighborhood birdies, we hung it back up and sat back to see who might visit.  L was so excited about even the potential for feathered visitors that she jumped all over the yard.  Here's hoping some birds will turn up soon!

Outdoor Adventures: Please Do Feed the Animals!

When I was a kid, being outdoors was not exactly my cup of tea. For whatever reason, I wasn't likely to be found out in the fresh air very often.  But having seen classrooms full of kids flourish in the great outdoors during my years of teaching, I am determined not to project my nose-crinkling disdain of outdoor activities onto my daughter, even if my enthusiasm isn't one hundred percent genuine. So what to do to get my kid outside?


We are very fortunate to live in an area where fantastic outdoor activities for kids abound. We recently took two separate trips to places where outdoor life is the thing to do, and we all had a blast at every turn.

Hungry baby goats are pretty feisty!

First we went to a local children's farmstead that offered plenty of opportunities for interacting with animals.  L had a fantastic time, and it made me really appreciate the wonders of experiencing things for the first time.

"Goat! Food!"

Next we visited a local wildlife preserve which houses elk and bison.  While we didn't have the opportunity to meet any bison on this particular outing, we did get up close and personal with some hungry elk, who were all too happy to take the apples and carrots L offered them.

These experiences have been sort of humbling for me, as I never really considered I could enjoy myself so immensely doing outdoor things.  The really fantastic part is that the entire family had lots of fun and created marvelous memories. And my enthusiasm was one hundred percent genuine.