Edweirdsville - Camp October for Awesome Kids

Yes, we're still going with this learning-teaching bit around here.  I continue to change up the style of my planning to make my life easier while keeping the system effective.  Since we were constantly rearranging things to fit in with the other things that come up around here, I decided to give the plan more flexibility.  The new plan(s) will be for the entire month and be broken down by week.  My goal is to complete each of the projects listed of course, but I'm focusing on the most important/pertinent ones and having some 'extra' ideas floating out there just in case we need something to fill in some time.  This lesson is for the month of October.  We are covering Fall themes such as:  leaves, migration, hibernation, food collection/storage, harvest, Halloween... We had a great time playing with all of our autumn ideas and we hope you do too!

Pre-K October

The October Board

Tree made from paper bag with construction paper 'leaves' for indoor fall leaf fun

(A) testing which leaves he can blow the farthest (hint: it helps if are curved toward the ground so that they can catch air).

We organized and reorganized leaves by colors, shapes, sizes... 

The little man exploring some cypress needles.

"Look mom, this one is red!"

Separating pine needles

This was a BIG hit with the toddler!  Make a leaf outline with glue on paper and have the kid crumble dry leaves over it.  He showed this picture off to EVERYONE, showing them how he crushed leaves to make it.

Show off.

Leaf print with finger paint (easy)

Not part of the lesson plan, but blowing dandelions is so fun.

Eating them is less fun.

On the lake, checking out the bird migrations

I failed at getting pictures of the pumpkin picking, but here is a small portion  of our fall vegetable garden.

My pirate trick-or-treating.

Cousin trick-or-treaters!

Eeewww!  Pumpkin guts!

Pumpkins are way more awesome once their guts have been extracted.

Pumpkin Muffins are an Autumn Necessity

I love every season for about 5 minutes before I start finding things to hate.  It's like this, I LOVE Autumn: cooler air, changing leaves, Halloween, my son's birthday, Thanksgiving, fires, boots, s'mores, hot tea, fall crops, and pumpkin flavored EVERYTHING.  On the other hand, Autumn means: cold, wet weather and fall allergy season.  So on the cold, wet days that I spend sneezing and wheezing, I try to whip up something warm and tasty and yes, usually pumpkin flavored.  We spent a little time the other day making jack-o-lanterns.  I ended up with about 3 lbs of cooked, pureed pumpkin to make stuff with.  So today I decided to make Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins.  I found a few recipes to use for inspiration and then gave them a little tweaking (you all know that I cannot leave a recipe alone, even on the first try).  So for your palate's pleasure, here is my version of Autumnal happiness:

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Yield: 24
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
4 medium eggs

2 cups pumpkin, cooked and pureed (or 1 can of pure pumpkin)
1 1/4 cups oil

8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup of confectioner's sugar

1 cup pecans, chopped
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix cream cheese and confectioner's sugar in set in the refrigerator while you're making the muffin mix.  Mix melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and add chopped pecans.  In a large mixing bowl, add all dry ingredients and stir until mixed.  Add eggs, oil, and pumpkin and mix until combined.  Put liners in a muffin tin and fill them 3/4 full with muffin mix.  Using a teaspoon, add a small dollop of cream cheese mixture onto the center of each.  Top with a small handful of pecans.  Cook for 20-25 minutes.  (Mine took 23 minutes)