Fall foliage is in full force! It's apple picking, pumpkin carving, trick-or-treat time!! 👻

Last year we went to carve our pumpkin and realized just how complicated creating a jack-o-lantern can be. We choose a LARGE pumpkin that had deep grooves which made it near impossible to draw shapes for Daddy to cut out. The marker couldn't even make a straight line. Then Ivan's pin pricking kit came into play!

How we figured out a short cut to pumpkin carving that included Ivan participating in a very helpful role:

Design your pumpkin face - need inspiration? search online for different jack-o-lantern faces
Draw the mouth and eye shapes on white paper
Then, place each eye and mouth on the pumpkin & secure with painters tape
Let your child pin prick the pattern directly on the pumpkin
*the pins are SHARP, not toys!
Remove the paper shapes and see the trail of pin pokes left behind
Have an adult cut out shapes & circle around top
Clean out guts of pumpkin
Light & Enjoy!

Pin-pricking isn't just a good way to carve your pumpkin, it is used in Montessori classrooms as a way to reinforce the proper grip for a writing skills, it strengthens fine motor hand muscles, and a great exercise for concentration! We've put together pin-pricking kits you can use in your home. Each kit includes a holding case (3 colors available: blue, green, pink); sponge, pin pricker, assortment of fall colored leaves and an apple! Order your pin-pricking kit with fall leaves + apple here.

Last year, I used brown packaging from an amazon shipment to make a tree in on our home office wall and this year a Trader Joe's paper grocery bags. Ripping the paper in long strips I just taped the strips on the wall in the shape of a tree trunk & branches. Ivan could come in and pin-prick 1 or more leaves and hang. It ended up being super cute and a great little activity for him.

How to use the pin-pricking kit to build your fall foliage tree:

Rip long strips of brown paper, to build a trunk & branches, taping to the wall
Have your child choose a leaf or apple shape to pin prick
The shape gets placed on top of the sponge to avoid pokes in your table!
Your child should poke along the line of the shape and may need help poking the shape out when complete
Your child can tape to the tree!

Once Ivan finds a book he likes, he LOVES it. Which means we read it over, and over, and over again! Nothing worse than him locking onto a book that is dreadful to read! I defiantly have my favorites ... and may or may not be responsible for books that have disappeared in the past ...

When we visit the library, I try to skim the books we check out in the attempts to find GOOD ones ... meaning, we will both enjoy them!

Here are two GEMS that shined from our last library outing. Worth hunting down at a library near you (If you are in the Columbus, Ohio area, you can reserve online here Billions of Bricks & The Lion Inside)

WHY we love Billions of Bricks: Rhyming, Counting, Process, Construction + Building, & STEM

WHY we love The Lion Inside: Beautiful illustrations, great story about different perspectives!