Autumn Treasures Part 2

It has only been a few days since I wrote part 1 of Autumn Treasures but we have done so much in that time!  One of the activites we did on Friday that I didn't write about was a watercolor lesson. I purchased some Prang waterpaints at Staples and a couple of Rose Art trays as well.  I didn't want to spend over $5 each on Prang but you can tell the difference between the two when using them so I should make an effort to make sure they each get their own set of Prang watercolors. (though at this stage I'm not sure the younger ones really care.)  They all LOVED painting and keep asking to do it again.

Emma, Jenna, Ellie and Connor learning about watercolors

On Saturday, we visited a local pumpkin farm for their annual fall festival.  There was so much to do as you'll see in the pictures.  Before we left for the farm, I filled the crockpot with apples, sugar and spices and later in the day we had some nice homemade applesauce.  I used this recipe.

preparing the apples for the applesauce

applesauce before cooking...I sliced the apples with a mandoline

Connor, Emma and Ellie sharing a warm blanket on a chilly morning

Just before entering the corn maze

Autumn Treasures

A year ago at this time I was about to have my 10th child. (Time flies!!)  At about that time, I got an e-mail introducing these new Download N Go unit studies and an offer for a free unit.  The unit was Autumn Treasures.  I remember skimming it and saving it on my computer to "possibly look at and use at some point".   Little did I know, that a year later I would be using Download N Go as my main curriculum for some of the kids... not to mention reviewing units on this blog and loving every minute of it!

I made an error in my planning for this unit.  I thought I had an extra week and planned to use it over a 2 week period. So, we are not currently finished with it. I plan to post Autumn Treasures part 2 some time in the near future. Find it here.

At first, I thought that it was too early to start a unit on autumn.  I mean, it's technically still summer and I was originally thinking about doing this unit in October.  However, now that we are working on it, I think the timing is perfect. We have started observing nature early enough in the season to watch summer turn into fall.

Jenna and Emma in front of our green maple tree.
We'll take pictures like this all season as it
changes.

For those who are not familiar with Download N Go, it is a unit study curriculum for grades K-4.  Each unit is broken up into 5 daily lessons and covers a variety of topics within the main topic.

 In Autumn Treasures the daily topics are:

Day 1: What is Autumn?
Day 2: Science Secrets of Autumn
Day 3: People and Places of Autumn
Day 4: Time for Tips and Treasures of Autumn
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of Autumn

Just before starting this unit we were able to go to a local apple orchard that we try to go to every year.  We picked over 40 lbs of apples (it didn't take much time either).  This year we only picked two varieties; Ginger Gold and Gala.  YUM!  Besides just eating plain apples we have had apples with two different kinds of dip, apple cake, apple pie and apple crisp.  We are planning to make applesauce and possibly apple butter among other things.

Connor picking a Gala apple

Ellie

On the way to the car.  Lots of apples!!

apple cake