Falling In Love With Fall

For the next 3 weeks our over-all theme is Fall.  The first week was "Leaves and Trees", and the letter was "Tt".

Right away I wanted to make a snack in the shape of leaves, because, well, that sounds awesome!

So, I thought of Jello.  Everyone loves Jello.  I bought red (cherry), orange (orange) and green (lime).  

I followed the directions for jigglers, but I think the pans I used were too large, and the jello ended up being too thin and wouldn't cut.  So, I got enough out for every kid to have one, and then they got just regular jello.

The leaves.

The Jello.

Okay, so remember how I said that everyone loves Jello?  Well, apparently my kids don't.

So, to sum up, the Jello wasn't the greatest hit.

On the craft/art side, I had the kids write a giant "T", and then glue leaves on it.  Also, we made family "T"rees.  They drew a trunk, then ripped up little pieces of brown, red, yellow and green construction paper as leaves.  Then, they glued their family pictures on it, which they loved!  Kids love to talk about their home lives.

The second week was "Squirrels and Acorns"  I found a really cute recipe for "acorns" on pinterest.  It was made with Mini Nilla Wafers, Hershey's Chocolate Kisses and peanut butter.  (It actually called for  chocolate frosting, but peanut butter is healthier, I already had it, and none of my kids are allergic.)

These are seriously the easiest snacks EVER!!!  They're also very yummy!  Much bigger hit than the Jello.

I put the peanut butter in a ziplock, and snipped off the end.  I put about a pea-size on the flat side of the kiss, stuck the mini nilla wafer on it, and put a little drop of peanut butter on top of that for the stem.

And, voila...

These little acorns were a huge hit!  The teachers loved them, the kids loved them, and the parents came in the next day going, "They said they ate acorns yesterday...?"  I would absolutely make these again, and highly recommend them for any function from a kids' party, after school snack, Thanksgiving or Fall/Harvest party.  They are simply adorable!

That same day, we had a Literacy Parade, in which the kids dressed up as their favorite book characters, and brought the books in, to share with the other kids.  For me it was a no-brainer.  Amelia Bedelia.  I have loved and identified with her since I was a little girl.

So, I went to Goodwill and bought a simple, black, long-sleeved dress for $6, and a black hat for $3.  One of Dan's dress shirts had gotten ruined a few months back (and I kept it to make something out of), so I cut the collar off that, and just wore that with the dress.  I didn't have any luck finding a black apron, until I asked the wonderful lady who cooks at the preschool.  She had some made out of garbage-bag-type plastic, which was perfect.  After that I made some flowers out of pink construction paper, and this is what I looked like:

Pretty close to the real thing, if you ask me! :)  (Even though about 70% of people didn't know who she was.)

So, this has been our Fall Theme.  I've thoroughly enjoyed what we've done, and hope you find some of my ideas, tips and slight failures (namely, Jello) helpful.

I would love to hear any type of feedback from you, please let me know if you have any ideas for our next theme - COMMUNITY HELPERS.