Pumpkin French Toast

It's Fall!  In our house - and I'm sure many others - that means time for all things pumpkin!  I recently saw a picture of pumpkin french toast and thought, "Why didn't I think of this before?!"

French toast is one of Little Guy's favorite Sunday morning breakfasts, so to celebrate the first day of Autumn, I decided to make Pumpkin French toast.

Here's what I used:

8 slices of bread
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup pumpkin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
powdered sugar
syrup

Beat eggs and combine with milk, pumpkin, and cinnamon.
Coat each side of your bread in mixture and cook on griddle (or you can use a pan) flipping when each side is gently browned.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Enjoy with a bit of syrup!

*I had a few slices left over after breakfast, so I froze them individually in ziplock baggies.  They make a great breakfast for mornings when you're short on time.  Just pop them in the toaster to reheat.  You can even cut them into sticks to eat on the go!

2

Letter F fun!

Since it's Fall, it seemed like the perfect time to introduce the letter F.  We started out the week discussing the sound it makes and trying to come up with some words that begin with f.  Little Guy got familiar with the shape and sound by gluing some feathers on a big letter F.

I usually have him paint glue on because if I just hand him the bottle we end up with a huge mess.  Plus, it's good practice for his grip.

It's little projects like these that I really love, because I get to see how differently Little Guy thinks than I do.  I had a pile of feathers out for him to use, thinking he would fill up the space with as many feathers as possible.  Turns out he's a much more practical kind of guy.  Just enough feathers to make an F were all he used.

We also did a couple of pages from the Kumon mazes book (at Little Guy's request).  Here's an example of the pages in the book.

We also did some prewriting practice pages from Over the Big Moon

During our week filled with letter F activities, we also had a Fire Safety Day, which you can read about HERE!  We discussed the importance of Fire Safety and acted out what we do in certain fire related situations.

Here's a pic of Little Guy crawling to stay low under the "smoke."

We also read a book about frogs, found a workbook page about thier life cycle, and made a cute frog puppet that I found at No Time for Flashcards

No Time for Flashcards is also where I found this adorable paper football.

He especially loved showing Dad when he got home from work!
As usual, we did our Find the F's story page, and Letter F writing practice sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Little Guy is starting to get really good at his letter tiles page each week!  I guess I'm going to have to start using bigger words!

We finished our letter F week with a Fall wreath.  You can see how we made it and the adventure that it sparked HERE,   but here's a pic of the finished product.

The books we read this week were:




"Fox's Adventure in Alphabet Town,"  by Janet McDonnell
(Perfect.  The whole book is filled with words that begin with F)

"If I were a Firefighter," by Thomas Kingsley Troupe
(Got a round of applause from Little Guy at the end)

"Frogs," by Laura Driscoll
(Informative without being too boring)

"Kick the Football, Charlie Brown," adapted by Judy Katshce
(we read this because Little Guy has been into Peanuts lately, but boy, was this book terrible!)

"The Fall Festival," by Mercer Mayer
(We love the Little Critter books, but this was an I Can Read book, so there were a lot of short, choppy  sentences.  Little Guy still liked it though.)

0

"P" is for Pumpkins

Lucky for us, there is a pumpkin patch within walking distance of our home, so we started off our Pumpkin themed week with a walk to the pumkin patch!

We chose one for carving and some smaller pumpkins for painting.  I couldn't get over how theraputic it is to paint.  Your mind just kind of stops running a million miles an hour while you paint.  It was great! Little Guy had such a fun time mixing colors and trying to cover every space on his pumpkin.  Here's a pic of our painted pumpkins.

We started off our week with the Spookley the Square Pumpkin story and a craft. to go with it.

We did our Letter P writing practice sheet and a "Find the P's story" from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

I found these Halloween themed pompoms in the dollar bin area of Target, and knew they would be great for a sorting activity.  We sorted them into compartments of a plastic container by small, meduim, and large. 

I just love this pic of Little Guy concentrating on his letter tile matching page.

We also made a 5 Little Pumpkins book from Prekinders.com  I had Little Guy color one page every day, then on Friday we cut it and stapled it make a book. 

When I was browsing Pinterest I saw this cute little pumpkin made of scraps of paper, and I knew I had to add it into our Pumpkin themed week!  Little Guy ripped up pieces of orange paper (which is great for building muscles in his little hands), and then painted a paper plate with glue.  While he got to work adding the bits of paper to the plate, I cut out 2 triangles and a mouth from black construction paper.  He glued them on, and tada!  A cute mosaic jack o' lantern!

(In case you're wondering about the pig - aka: Evil Dr. Porkchop, I let Little Guy bring something to school as long as it starts with our letter of the week.  It's a win, win because he's happy to be able to have a toy with him, and I'm happy he's scavenging the house for something that starts with our letter!)

The books we read this week are:


"Pumpkin, Pumpkin" by Jeanne Titherington
(Nothing spectacular, but introduces the stages of the growth of the pumpkin)




"The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin" by Joe Troiano
(A wonderful book about not judging a book by it's cover.  Great lesson about how being different doesn't mean you can't be destined for greatness. Little Guy even clapped at the end!)



"The Pumpkin Fair" by Eve Bunting




"Pumpkin Soup" by Helen Cooper
(Great story to teach little ones about taking turns and giving others a chance)




"Franklin's Pumpkin" by Sharon Jennings
(We just love Franklin in this house.)

1