Nature Walk and Too Many Pumpkins

We started out our morning at Deanne's home for a nature walk. I had painted the bottom of egg cartons, each space a different color. Each kid got his or her own carton. I asked them to look around and see if they could find things in nature that matched each color.


After Deanne read Too Many Pumpkins, the kids made roasted pumpkin seeds. The story is about an old woman named Rebecca Estelle who doesn't like anything pumpkin. You have to read the story to find out if she changes her mind... :)

Farm Fun

For a field trip in October, we took the kids to a farm! The Duffield's have a home behind an orchard where they keep dogs, horses, chickens, pigs and goats. It was most fun for me to just see the kids act like kids. When Annette got out of the car, it was like she instinctively knew that this was a place she could relax and play. Kate Duffield gave us a tour of the property, including a giant barn that was in the process of being built.

Excitement during our tour of the chicken coop.
Checking things out.
Peeking into the chicken coop.
The kids were amazed how close they could get to the animals! After getting a good look, several of the kids had interesting questions to ask such as, "Why do goats have horns?" and other questions about parts of the animals.

Learing About Colors

I have some posts to catch up on! On Oct 4th, Kellie taught a lesson on colors to the kids. She demonstrated how colors change when they are mixed together by dropping various colored ice cubes into a jar of warm water. As the cubes dissolve, they mix and change colors. For example, Kellie put a red and blue ice cube into the water and it made purple.
Then the kids recorded their observations on a worksheet Kellie gave them. They colored in the circles with the colors that were dropped into the water (Red + Blue) and then colored the final circle the new color (= Purple).

Look at those smart kiddos learning! :)

The other cool experiment Kellie did was to mix food coloring into milk. When you put a cue tip with dish soap into the milk, all the colors "run away" to leave this beautiful swirling design.