More Autumn

We had a fun morning making cool books about hedgehogs.

Hedgehogs need to be 600g in weight before they can successfully enter hibernation. 600g on the scales is a lot of foreign coins!

 We made a wormery so we could see their composting processes.

Our sunflowers ended their bloom so we picked them and used the seeds to fill the bird feeder.

We kept some to plant in the spring.

We had fun with pumpkins. Guesstimating and weighing.

Making silly faces

Learning pumpkin facts

And making a pumpkin scene.

The Boy roasted the pumpkin seeds and this year we tried them with sugar and cinnamon.

More lovely Autumn art

I love these - silver birches under beautiful skies.

Monkey Girl rescued a dragonfly caught in a cobweb. She did apologise to the spider for stealing its feast.

Making oat, cinnamon and raisin cookies.

Drawing pine cones with help from YouTube.

Tree posters, including leaf rubbings, bark rubbing and seed and leaf examples.

A few years ago we learnt a little about the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival which, this year, was celebrated in September. We're a little late with it but the children enjoyed making lanterns...

...writing Chinese characters...

...Monkey Girl made this beautiful Double Happiness poster...

...and lantern...

...the two littlies made a simplified version of Chinese mooncakes...

...they watched a video about the Mid-Autumn Festival...

And we tried eating rice with chopsticks.

Mooncakes for dessert.

Panda Girl finished the week with some brilliant conker characters. :)

Gingerbread Men, Breathing Leaves, Impressionist Autumn Painting and Bird Feeders

Our Autumn Unit continues:

The kiddies put cellophane bags on leaves to catch evaporation from the leaves breathing.

Refilling the bird feeders

Autumn worksheets

Making gingerbread men / Pippy Longstockings / pandas / monkeys

Yumma :)

Autumn art. I found this impressionism idea on the internet and the children loved it.

The beginnings of a nature table

Bread basket made out of bread. Clever Monkey Girl. 

Toffee Apples and Hedgehog Homes

We've never made toffee apples before so the appeal of Autumn and all its potential meant this year we had to give it a go.

Soak 4 apples in boiling water, dry and skewer

Pour 50ml of water and 200g of caster sugar into a pan and stir gently on a high heat for 5 minutes

Add 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar and 2 tablespoons of golden syrup

Stir until ready (when you drop a blob into cold water it hardens immediately)

Pour over apples

I felt like we'd made some sort of indestructible material! The toffee was super sticky and solid and unbreakable! But I suppose that's half the fun!

We also made hedgehog homes today. The Boy chose a spot hidden under a plant at the back of a flower bed. Good choice! He filled it with leaves and straw.

Panda Girl chose a great spot by the compost heap, under the hazel tree. She filled hers with leaves and straw too and both kiddies put sand in the front to track any footprints.

The Farm Shop remains a hit.

This afternoon/evening consisted of workbooks, guitar lessons and ballet classes.