5 Little Pumpkins and a whole lot more

Today we enjoyed a calm day at home (though formal tiara attire was clearly called for).

We looked on our US map and talked about the upcoming drive from Dallas to Nashville.  

We will meet Nonnie and Papaw in Little Rock, which is halfway.  

We read a fun Halloween book where two little witches add friends to their trick-or-treating group. We used bears as our trick-or-treaters and wrote number sentences for each page.  Our favorite was 10-8=2.  This was when the monster came out and everyone but the two brave witches ran away.

Today, we tried something very new: sensory bins.  I have seen different versions but read about them at Counting Coconuts.  Most fall stuff is very cheap now that it is almost Halloween, so I decided to try a fall bin and see what we thought. I dyed rice, added real and pretend pumpkins, pumpkin seeds, real acorns and pinecones (thanks, Abby, for bringing them all the way from Missouri!!!), orange beads, silk leaves, and anything else I found in the dollar bin (which was 30% off).

There was lots of balancing of irregular objects.

Some pattern making

Lots of sifting through the rice in search of all of a particular type of thing

Several animated versions of "5 Little Pumpkins" 

(pictured, of course, is "rolled out of sight"...the best part by far.)

 Lucy and I played with the bin for almost an hour.  We had so much fun doing all kinds of things.  She used the big beads as money so we each took turns as a store owner selling pumpkins and pinecones.  She balanced pumpkins on my head, talked about how real and silk leaves were the same and different, and just had fun.  I don't know if it will be as magical the second time, but we will see!  

Zoe finished her Water Poster - showing what happens to water as a solid, liquid, and gas.  

Lots of glitter added just the right touch.