Intriguing Leaves and Dramatic Play

Dramatic Play

Intriguing Leaves

My dramatic play area was giving me a time this week...what could I do for fall?  I thought about adding fake leaves and plastic rakes and having the kids rake the leaves...maybe adding plastic fall vegetables and having the kids make a fall meal...then it hit me...Farmer's Market!  So last night after giving my little Owlets a bath I made pumpkins out of paper bags, newspaper, and orange paint.  I moved the bench to my dining room table to the dramatic play area to serve as the table, added the pumpkins, the apple cider jugs and apples from our apple theme, and some pretend fruits and veggies.  The Owlets had a great time serving up apple cider and selling fruit and vegetables to each other! 
Our art activity for the day was pretty simple, but created a unique masterpiece.  I cut out leaf shapes from magazines and my hubby drew a simple tree shape on paper.  The kids glued the leaf shapes onto the tree! 
In group time we played a color matching game, I drew a tree (a very pathetic looking tree) onto poster board labeled it with yellow, brown, red, and orange dots, and had it laminated.  I took it to Office Depot because my little laminating machine that I love and am so glad I have will not handle poster board..the nice lady there laughed at my sad little tree!  Anyway, I cut leaves out of red, yellow, brown, and orange construction paper, laminated them, and cut them out.  The Owlets picked a leaf and taped it to the coordinating dot.  When all the leaves were on it, it was beautiful and not as sad looking! 
I added colored pencils and paper to the writing area along with some cards with fall words and matching pictures on them. I encouraged the Owlets to try and copy the letters off the cards or to draw a picture of what was on the card. 

There are more fall adventures awaiting us tomorrow...hopefully a nature walk to look for leaves, acorns, and pine cones for our discovery trays if the rain goes away!  :)