Pumpkin Gingerbread S'mores

On a rainy, autumn afternoon, with the help of a cozy fire...

...gingersnaps, pumpkin marshmallows, and a few mini chocolate bars...

...combined together into fall perfection.

Okay, to be honest, the pumpkin marshmallows were a little strange, and maybe too spicy to go with the gingersnaps, but the children liked them, and the s'mores smelled like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined - so near perfection, anyway.

Columbus Day And Donuts on a String (Real World Math)

If you're just waking up to realize today is Columbus Day, don't worry, BrainPop has you covered.  Their feature (meaning free) film for the day is on Christopher Columbus, and strikes a nice balance between celebrating the accomplishments of his discoveries, and discussing the controversies of his actions.

We celebrated the day with a donuts on a string challenge for breakfast...

...which has less to do with Columbus Day (or Canadian Thanksgiving - which we'll be celebrating later in the day with a Peanuts inspired popcorn and pretzel lunch) so much as knocking another fall tradition off our leaf list.

But, here's a real world math problem for you from our morning to yours:

Given eight foot monkey bars, and children from four to six feet tall...

...what is the average length of string needed, to loop through donuts and tie to the monkey bars...

...in order to give each child a donut hanging at a challenging, but still reachable height...

...to be eaten with no hands (given that the teenagers in the group will inevitably pull the donuts off and eat them by hand after the first few attempts at a bite)?

Happy Columbus Day!

Owl Cookies - Another Fun Fall Family Tradition

We made a batch of adorable owl cookies, yesterday (click here for the recipe and instructions).

We make them every year as a family, and it's always a hoot.

This year, with Grandma visiting, and a busy day, we were a little discombobulated, and so were our owls.  Not only did I roll the dough backwards (chocolate maple on the inside instead of vanilla).  I see now from looking at the pictures, that we all placed our dough slices...

...upside down from normal, too.

Still, the cookies were yummy, and we enjoyed the tradition together...

...so woo cares about a few mistakes.

Pinecone Planters

This one was more just for fun, than for any kind of scientific exploration.

While we had our pile of pine cones gathered up, brainstorming possible crafts or experiments, we wondered if we could plant something in them.

Would they hold enough dirt to allow seeds to grow?

Would watering make them close up, and keep them from allowing the seeds to sprout?

If the seeds did sprout, would the pine cones look like tiny, little evergreen trees?

With these questions in mind, we searched through our cupboard for a packet of grass seed (leftover from our preschool days), placed our pine cones into cut-off Dixie cups, and headed outside to sprinkle them with dirt...

...and water...

...before adding seeds.  It was at this point, that I realized I'd been thinking of tiny birdseed type seeds, not giant, good for toddler hands type grass seeds.  In fact, it might have been the image of a pine cone covered in peanut butter and birdseed, that made us wonder about whether seeds would grow when planted on a pine cone, in the first place.

We did our best with the larger seeds, placing them as carefully as we could into the dirt covered shelves.  Finally, we spritzed them down one more time with water...

...and placed them in a sunny windowsill.  

We watered them every day.  The pine cones did close up when watered, and since we kept them pretty wet, they stayed closed.  We figured this would probably keep our seeds from sprouting.  But then, after about a week of waiting and watering, we saw the first signs of sprouts of grass pushing out from between the scales.

So far, they don't look anything like tiny trees...

...but their kind of interesting to look at, all the same.

Leaf and Twig Fall Mobiles

We finally got around to turning our windfall of twigs into something artistic for autumn.

I placed them out on the table today, with yarn, and a pile of silk leaves.  At least I'm guessing they were silk.  They were fake, and from the craft store, anyway.

I explained the concept of a mobile to the younger girls (ages 9 and 10) who were too young to remember the last time we made mobiles, and demonstrated for them a how to piece together a pattern before they started assembling their projects.

I mixed the twigs and leaves back together (so as not to influence them too strongly with my own pattern selection), and let the girls go to work.  The last time we did a similar project was a few years ago (inspired at the time by Alexander Calder) when the older girls were just about the age the younger girls are now.  It was fun for me to see the younger girls (ages 9 and 10) expressing their own creative vision of a project their sisters had tackled previously.

E surprised me, and started off right away by tying two of the twigs into an X to hang leaves from...

...while C stuck with the simpler single twig starting point I had showed them.  C also went straight to taping her leaves to the yarn, while E gave a valiant try at sewing them on, so they would look better.

Sewing the leaves onto the yarn proved to be slightly more difficult than she was ready for though (you have to work hard to get them to hang right, and balancing a mobile is already a complicated feat in and of itself).  In the end, she relented, and taped her leaves to the yarn, as well.

It is possible to see the tape, but the completed projects are still striking.

Naturally though, I hung them in front of a sunny window, so you'll just have to take my word (and a few back-lit pictures) for it.

They really do look nice, and appropriately autumnal, hanging and twirling, ever so slowly in afternoon light.

Thanksgiving Patchwork Grid Art for Elementary Ages

This project is similar to the sidewalk chalk grid art we tried out in the summer, just brought indoors, and overhauled for Thanksgiving.  So, instead of drawing out a large grid on the patio (or using the blank grid that printed with the template), I cut sheets of red, yellow, brown, and orange construction paper into 6'' squares for the children to draw on.

I printed a grid art turkey template from Activity Village...

...flipped it over, and labeled it with letter and number coordinates...

...before cutting it apart...

...and giving the pieces to the girls to reproduce on the squares of constructions paper.  Before they started drawing, they labeled the square they were working on, by writing the letter and number coordinates on the back of the construction paper square to match the grid square, then flipping their two pieces over, being sure to keep the coordinates in the top right hand corner of the back of each square.

They drew the lines on each square in pencil first...

...and then, when they were satisfied that they had them right, they traced over the lines with brown markers.

They discovered it was easier to draw the lines onto the larger sheets of paper if...

...they folded each of the pieces into quarters, first.

When they had all the squares drawn...

...I taped them up onto a wall, to reveal the picture.  The lines didn't all match up perfectly...

...but the end result was perfectly adorable (in my opinion, anyway).

Gingerbread Men Shaped Padded Envelope Poppers

The first real "sticking" snow of the season...

...means it's gingerbread men time at our house.

When the children were tiny we'd have a Gingerbread Man unit study.  Now, we pretty much settle for decorating the cookies, with maybe a story, and quick craft thrown in for the younger children.  I love how every year there's a new version of the old story to be found.  Our favorite this year (actually from 2009, but new to us) is "The Gingerbread Girl" written and performed by Jim Rule and Friends, and not to be confused with the picture book by Lisa Campbell Ernst (also a good story).

As to the craft, I lucked out, and had a grad gift for T delivered in a bubble wrap lined envelope instead of a box, so we could stick with our "keeping fall simple" theme, and re-use another old idea - padded envelope poppers.

I cut the bag open, then traced around a cookie cutter on the paper, and cut out gingerbread men...

...for the children to decorate...

...and pop.  Making for an extremely simple craft, and a toy to boot.  Who doesn't like to pop bubble wrap?  In fact, the teens were a little miffed I didn't save any for them.  I guess I know what I'll put in their stockings come Christmas.

A few tips: 

• Popping bubble wrap attached to a paper envelope is a little different than popping regular bubble wrap.  You have to place your thumb and fingers just right - and use more force.  It might be difficult for small children (it probably represents some kind of choking/suffocation hazard, too - so be careful).
• Some packing envelopes have bubble wrap that pops easier than others.  It's a good idea to test it out, before cutting the shapes.
• I was worried that washable marker used to decorate the shapes, would come off on the children's hands while popping the bubble wrap.  But, allowed to dry completely, the marker did not come off the paper.