I’ve been a long time fan of No Time for Flashcards, so when Allison, the author, announced that her very first post was live on Adventures in Learning (the new PBS Parents blog), I headed on over to check it out. As usual, her learning activity was creatively set up, engaging as could be, and easy to put together. While we really haven’t started doing activities that have specific learning outcomes in mind (we’re more in the play and learn along the way stage), Gracen does love counting and all sorts of games, so I decided we’d give it a shot.
Okay, so we didn’t actually mean to do it in the dark, but then again, we didn’t plan on making a leaf maze in the first place. We had actually headed outside so that Gracen could play and I could rake up and compost our mounds of leaves and tidy up the yard, but meh – making a leave maze just seemed like more fun.
I’ve seen this idea on 
Grae found her way through several times and then asked, “Make maze more tricky, Mama?”
So with a few minor adjustments, we had a new, trickier maze for her to try. 
It met her approval and then she decided she’d try driving her tractors through for something different… A fantastic idea if you ask me!
♥
Over the course of the last week, Gracen has been very into collecting “autumn sings (things)”. At first, I thought we’d use the items to make a couple of art projects and a sensory bin (which we did), but the collection grew so quickly and became so diverse that I decided a special area to display and admire her beautiful nature items was needed.
So this morning, we started out by taking down Grae’s 
Grae and I started emptying our bags and filling up the shelves (being the little organizer she is, she of course wanted all similar items together, so I was very lucky to be granted permission to split up the apples/corn/pinecones into a couple of different areas). As she started to try and stand her tree branches upright along the wall, I realized that Great Great Grandma Amy’s vintage mason jars would display them beautifully.
Our items came from a variety of spots… Most of the leaves, branches, and twigs were found while walking around visiting parks in our neighbourhood in Vancouver. The baby pumpkin and dried corn were found on our 
When we were all done emptying and arranging, the end result was a cute little autumn-inspired corner in G’s room where she is free to explore nature at any time.
So far, she seems to enjoy rearranging her items and reading in front of the shelf most.
It may be the first of October, but the flowers in our front gardens would never let you know it. Today Miss G took some time to sniff her way around our yard and comment on each of the flowers she found – “Dis one soooo beautiful, Mama!”.