Autumn Trees and Pumpkins

Hi friends,

Geez I've gotten so lazy this last week.....I feel like I'm drowning at times. Anyone else that busy? I was going through the pictures on my phone and realized..... Crap, I haven't blogged about any of it!
I promise there's lots going on at school -- well actually too much. So, I thought I'd share a few cool things!

It's been really raining here over the last couple of weeks. What does that mean? Yep - inside recess. Dancing to "Just Dance Kids" only stays interesting for so long and the kiddos needed to move on to something new. Well, one of the teachers in my building fit it some art time during inside recess time. This is brilliant. At my school, we aren't allowed to do "art". If it's not connected to the standards, then it's not allowed. But recess time isn't regulated. So, one of the teachers at my school  allowed her firsties to create autumn trees with manilla paper, crayons, autumn-colored tissue paper, and glue.  LOVE THIS! And how creative! She didn't give the kids a template so they were forced to use their background knowledge and creativity to create their own autumn trees. All the trees were so different! These kids were having a BALL! Oh, and the part I loved the most was how they were applying the tissue paper. They placed the tissue paper squares over their pencil erasers, dabbed on a bit of glue and pressed it on the paper. It created a really neat effect and the "leaves"were blowing.....

Here is another cool activity I did with my son and daughter. We still have them hanging in our living room as decorations. 

We colored some elbow macaroni orange. To do this we put the noodles in a large ziploc baggie (you want lots of room to shake it). Next, squeeze red and yellow food coloring in (you need ALOT more yellow then red - just 2 drops of red, about 10 drops of yellow). Then, pour about half of a bottle of rubbing alcohol into the baggie. Close the baggie up tight and SHAKE!!!!!!!!

Afterward, pour the noodles into a large pan and flatten the noodles out where they aren't piled on top of each other. This will help them dry faster and not stick together. 

The next day, after the noodles were good and dried, we created a pumpkin. This was not only a fun autumn activity, it was a great way to get my little one working on fine motor skills. After we filled the whole pumpkin in, we added 2 green rotini noodles for the stem. We didn't have to color anything for this - they were spinach....already green!

We glued the noodles to the paper, The noodles were placed so close together that the paper became really hard. We could have cut off the extra paper and just have the pumpkin. That would have been cool, but I didn't think of it until later. Next time I think we'll do that....they'd really be a great bulletin board accessory....I'm thinking pumpkin patch! :)

What are some fun autumn-type crafts you do in your classroom? Tell us about it and feel free to leave a link in the comments (if you have a blog)......