Homeschool: Autumn & Apples

Degen's unit folder. The kids loved these super-cute squirrel stickers I found. 

I love fall, and I love this unit. It is filled with lots of good books, treats and activities like our apple picking expedition you can read about in another post. The kids enjoyed talking about the changing leaves and eating apple goodies like apple pancakes, apple chips and apple juice. During this unit, Degen learned about how an apple grows, the parts of an apple tree and reviewed apple colors along with his weekly work with the alphabet and counting. Kyrie concentrated more on animal migrations, natural changes that occur in autumn and animal behavior during the season along with her weekly math exercises and reading/writing practice.

Kyrie's unit folder.

Some of our autumn books.

Some of our fall activities.

For 4 days in a row, Degen requested apple pancakes for breakfast! Yum! I ate mine with apple butter & syrup!

Kyrie working

I am constantly adding to our classroom collection of books and manipulatives. As the kids get older, their needs change which means that I need to go through our books & supplies to determine what is appropriate and what needs to go. As we approach the end of our academic year, this seems an even more necessary requirement. The state of our classroom felt like it was getting a bit out-of-control, which can happen easily. So, I spent a few days during this past week and went through a lot of things, which resulted in me removing a lot of books & manipulatives and moving around some of the shelves, especially the book shelves. After several hours, the room looked so much better, and as the room became less cluttered, so did my mind. Whew! I was so proud of my progress that I had to take some pictures. 

Our small bookshelf now holds chapter books and hardcover and/or over-sized books.

The larger bookshelf now has all of our book bins, which are divided by subject. I also went through the baskets on the top and tried to organize the small items that accumulate. Later, I tackled the pile of books on the left, moving unit books near our reading spot and putting my curriculum books in a basket. 

I tackled this beast! I took away a lot of manipulatives, toys, games and puzzles that the kids had outgrown and rearranged the remaining items. I also reorganized the top of the shelf, which holds books and teaching materials.