October Learning and Halloween

 October somehow was gone in a blink. I feel like I barely had time to soak up fall and now we are getting ready for Christmas at our house. Oh well. 

Our learning time this month was full of pumpkins, leaves, and all things spooky!

Week One: Autumn Trees

The nature curriculum we follow encourages observation of the same tree in every season. So we spent our first week in October on our backyard tree. We observed the size, colors (although the leaves hadn't changed yet...), type, and feel of the tree. Isla then sketched her tree in her book. 

We then came inside to bake some yummy treats.

Our art piece for week one was Still Life with Pumpkins by Theodule-Augustin Ribot. Isla did her best to replicate her own still life of a pumpkin. 

Week Two and Three: Pumpkins

We spent some extra time on pumpkins since there is so much you can do with them! Isla enjoyed painting and washing her pumpkins multiple times.

These little pumpkin cards were great for identifying numbers. Isla counted the pumpkins and clipped the correct number. Her one-to-one correspondence is amazing!

We made a few pumpkin desserts, of course.

I really, truly am against school this young, in the sense of replicating elementary school. But Isla thrives in structured learning and often asks for it. She even takes papers and books into her room to teach her brother. She spends her free time "pretending school" too, just like I did as a child :)

We ended with carving pumpkins for Halloween. Isla loved the guts and hunting for the seeds. We baked our seeds, carved our pumpkins, and lit them up in her room :)

We ended our October with trick-or-treating. When Isla was one it snowed a foot on Halloween so we didn't go out. When she was two we were nervous about Covid so we didn't go out again. So this was our official first trick-or-treating experience. We visited a few houses on Nana and Pop Pop's street. Isla was unsure at first and then ended up loving it. Ewan just wanted to go home and sit with Nana the whole time. He finally got his wish. We got home and Isla never once asked for candy. We kept waiting and were prepared to let her have her first piece, but she never asked. Even now, we have a sack of candy in our cupboard that she has long since forgotten about. So, she has yet to ever eat candy. I'm going to keep that up as long as possible! Isla loved being a "friendly, sheet ghost" and already has plans for next year's costume :)

Happy belated Halloween :)