I am starting to work on the fall. Any great things that you have done in the past that I need to include
We really liked painting with the twigs last fall. I am going to have to go back and look to see what else..

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That's a fun idea. One thing we've done is paint their arms for a tree trunk on green construction paper, then add little splotches of fall colored paints over the top, cover with wax paper, then let the kids smoosh and push, then let it dry overnight. Gently peel the wax paper off the next day. Especially good for little ones who might not be past the paint-eating stage yet.

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1. Apples & trees

We do life cycle of apples & trees, go apple picking, read about apples/apple picking, work on the letter A, cook with apples, paint with apples & leaves

2. Caterpillars & butterflies - Can link to the apple theme & it covers letters B & C

3. All about Me

4. Back to School

5. September is the 9th month counting activities 1-9

6. Fall colors - color mixing with paint, playdoh, matching games

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You can have a harvest week or month and talk about growing all kinds of food and farms and stuff. In my preschool curriculum class we made a "community harvest tree" (picture of it below) out of chicken wire and used both natural items we found (like leaves/sticks) and other fall color items like ribbons, pipe cleaners, and leaf stickers. Even stuff to put around it, someone in my group brought a cow bell and a pumpkin. All you need to make it light up is a tea light that you can get at the dollar store, no wires and no flames.You can also make a class scarecrow or read books about Autumn and related subjects (such as Spookily the Square Pumpkin).

Pumpkins and squash- you can grow pumpkins and other types of squash. You can let the kids draw and decorate them (or crave on them if parents are okay with that). If you don't have any kids that are allergic to squash you can make (or buy) pumpkin seeds or look into making spaghetti squash for lunch.

Corn- you can try to grow it or make corn for lunch or kettle popcorn for snack (a healthy snack if you don't add too much salt and butter). Maybe do candy corn crafts.

You can use the colors orange, yellow, red, brown, dark green, and black for art projects.

Whether- You can talk about the weather changes in every season (sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing or hot, cold, mild, etc.)

Activities/field trips (depending on where you are):
-Apple picking, pumpkin patch, corn mazes, and or a train ride (some places have that for kid groups).
-Nature hikes/scavenger hunts/picnics (in back yard or park).
-You can do a mini "camp out" (sleep outside in tents during nap time, if possible), roasting marshmallows/hot dogs or making s'mores or jiffy pop (in a supervised and controlled environment of course). You can also teach them camping/campfire songs or songs about nature.

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I can't speak from experience because this will be my first fall with daycare, but I will be doing a Farm theme the last week in August and first week in September - doing things like talking about farm animals, making butter, different crops, and that will lead us into Apples for the beginning of our Letter themed weeks for the "school year".

I really like your idea of painting with sticks, how fun!

I have also seen painting a fall color tree with q-tips or thumbprints.

With my own kids, we collected fall color leaves and glued them onto paper with a tree trunk that we cut out.

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We did sensory farm thing last year where we made glued feathers onto cut out chickens, pulled apart cotton balls onto sheep, hay onto barns, etc. The kids loved that!

we did these last year, too.

Wax leaf http://pinterest.com/pin/186617978280559822/

thumb print trees (this came out super cute, I used fall ink colors and printed it on vellum with the child's name in burnt orange and the date, we had them hung in the windows for a while, they were beautiful ) http://pinterest.com/pin/244109242271861845/

we also did:
http://pinterest.com/pin/244109242271861872/
http://pinterest.com/pin/244109242271861858/
http://pinterest.com/pin/244109242271861756/

carved pumpkins, painted pumpkins, made homemade apple pie, made homemade apple cider, made apple butter and made homemade applesauce.

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I LOVE the sensory aspect of the farm stuff ... I may be stealing some of these

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Me too!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater
if you start on this picture (cleaning out closet and reorganizing last fall) and go backwards.. you will see fall last year.

Looking through last fall has helped me. I feel like this summer with the twins (handfuls!!) that I have slacked off. It has also been brilliant out and I hate to not take advantage of that. But, time for me to reorganize and move forward into fall!! I will have college age dd home for a few days next week. I can make her work on some stuff for me... or watch littles so I can

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You did some great things last fall!

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Thanks

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I want to come to your daycare Mrs. Steinel!
So cute!

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Thank you. I love to see what other providers are doing! So share what your thinking for fall.
Looking through old pictures inspired me though... I am going to do YELLOW DAY tomorrow! I feel like I am so busy chasing my twins that I have been slacking.. it has been summer But I am trying to get "back on the bandwagon" for September!!

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