There's a change in the air. The days are getting shorter, the air crisper, and the leaves crunchier. Fall is here and it's brought pumpkin patches and corn mazes and leaf piles with it. My Instagram friend Ruth (@just_the_kids_nextdoor) is doing these toddler themes with her son and she had a great idea -- why not use a Fall theme to focus on trees. And that's just what we did! Our first activity, I'm sure you guessed, was a Fall scavenger hunt. We set out to find Fall treasures, and boy did we! Mia had an eagle eye and found so many great items all within a block of our apartment building. We laid them all out and took a few pictures so we could research some items further. I've been wanting to start nature journaling with the girls and this seemed like as good as time as any. I made a little on-the-go-kit with a Moleskin blank notebook, colored pencils, and some compact field guides in a little pouch. We also recently purchased a flower/leaf press on Amazon. Once we got a good picture of our treasures for the journal, we picked out a few flowers and leaves to press for future art projects. As we gathered some leaves, I pointed out the different kinds of trees we were seeing -- deciduous & coniferous. While she had a hard time saying those words, she easily grasped the concept that some trees have leaves and some have needles. We were even able to find one of the trees in our field guide. We made a leaf rubbing in our nature journal to mark the occasion. Before we headed back inside, we collected a few more pieces of the tall grasses so Mia could make a vase arrangement. Ruth suggested making leaf collages as a simple but fun art project, too!
I admittedly didn't pick the best week for a Fall theme because the leaves are all still green in Denver. However, the leaves higher up in altitude are already changing so I packed the girls up one morning for a leaf drive. My original plan was to scope out all the brilliant, golden aspens up at Kenosha Pass but as I pulled into the trailhead parking lot, I realized that we were a few days too late. Most of the leaves had already dropped. So it seems that late September is probably the best time to go; I've already made a note for next year. Ha! There's an old rail line from back in the mining days still visible right beside the trail, so the girls had some fun playing on the train tracks for a bit. Mia burst into an impromptu Hokey Pokey on the trail. Of course, I took a picture.
I backtracked east and took Guanella Pass towards Georgetown and finally found some golden aspens running up and down the mountainside. Aspens stands are created by many aspens all networked together underground by their roots. It makes them one of the largest (if not the largest) living organisms. Tree fun fact for ya! Mia and I collected some aspen leaves to compare to the ones we found closer to home. We could see that there were a lot of brown spots on the yellow leaves and we later learned that the spots were caused by a fungus. We had one of the wettest springs on record and it caused this fungus all these months later, dulling their fall colors.
Our other big Fall week activity was picking out a pumpkin. I took the girls to Anderson Farms in Erie one afternoon. There's an entrance fee but the girls were both free. Anderson has a huge corn maze with a smaller (simple looping) one for young kids. We got a map and I let Mia lead us through the maze. The maze always dumps you back out at the entrance but it still provided a little spatial awareness learning. A short tractor ride took us to the pumpkin patch and we tried to pick out a few good pumpkins. They grow white ones, pink ones, green ones, and, of course, orange ones at Anderson Farms. A really good variety and I was pleased but I didn't really think out the logistics of two young kids and pumpkins that I needed to get back to the tractor. Needless to say, we only ended up picking one from the actual patch...but it's the prettiest, most perfect, little white pumpkin and Millie picked it out (er, gave up right next to it). Luckily, we were able to snag a few more at the farm store. Two more white ones, a green gourd that looks like the "bad witch's" nose (The Wicked Witch of the West, of course), and a jar of pumpkin butter. We showed off all of our farm spoils to my husband when he got home from work. "Where's the orange one for carving?" Sigh. Sooooooo we decided to check out another pumpkin patch, this time Rock Creek Farm in Broomfield. Get this, you can drive your car on the farms roads through their fields and park right next to the patch you choose. Genius! This time we were able to get a proper gigantic orange pumpkin and everyone is happy. Ruth had a great idea for a Fall/Tree outing -- the apple orchard. Our local orchards are in bad shape after the late frost so there were no U-pick options this year. Hopefully, next year will be kinder to the farmers.
I was wracking my brain trying to think of a simple Fall-themed snack when Ruth mentioned syrup since it comes from trees. And then I eyed up that jar of pumpkin butter I purchased from the farm store. What about pumpkin hand pies with a maple glaze?! These are essentially the exact same as the poptarts recipe in my Valentine's Day post except I used pumpkin butter instead of jam and I added a little maple syrup & cinnamon into the powdered sugar glaze. So good!
I really appreciated getting some ideas from another mama this week. Thank you, Ruth! If you ever have a theme suggestion or other ideas or want to collaborate on a week, please let me know. I'm just working through a list of themes I created over 2 years ago so there's always room for improvement!
A summary of all Fall & Trees week activities with links:
ACTIVITIES: Went on a fall scavenger hunt, Navigated our way through a corn maze
ART PROJECTS: Pressed leaves we found on our fall scavenger hunt, Started our first nature journal and made leaf rubbings on paper
OUTINGS: Went to a few pumpkin patches and drove through the mountains to view the fall leaves
SNACK: Made pumpkin hand pies with a maple syrup glaze (find my basic poptart recipe here)
BOOKS: The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger, Leaves by David Ezra Stein, Nature Anatomy by Julie Rothman
BIBLE STORY: Adam & Eve and the Tree of Life
If you'd like to share a photo of your kid doing theme week activities, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).
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