Fall is a blessing. It is the start of new and exciting changes for your family as well as your Ebert's family. Your kid's will have new teachers, new schedules, and new adjustments. It is an exciting time!

We are embracing that excitement as well and anticipating some new changes here at Ebert's.  We will be moving some of the kid's activities around for our fall festival starting the last weekend of this month with our "kick-off" to fall featuring our annual craft fair!  With our brand new, gutter connected greenhouse under construction we will be a little more condensed with our fall activities for a short time.  We are so excited about these changes and most of all to host all of you again!

Of course with all of the changes mentioned above, we also embrace the changes of this beautiful season.  How refreshing to see the color in our harvest and scenery, the shades of the leaves, the fields, and the orange and yellow hues in the pumpkins and squash lining the landscape!  We want to share some fun and practical ideas that you can use for learning with your family that go hand in hand with fall!

We can't wait to see you this October for our Story Maze House (featuring Earl the Squirrel), games, crafts, hayride and train rides, and all the other fun we will have together!  Until then, and during the fall, here are some educational and creative learning ideas to utilize with your kid's:

 Use fall harvest items for your learning base. Together, gather a variety of mini pumpkins, acorns, pinecones, gourds, etc.  Think of other items together and have fun "hunting" for them!  These fall items can now be used in a variety of ways.....

Math: Sort the fall gatherings by items, color, texture, or size.  Compare and contrast the differences and similarities. Take turns making patterns with them.  Use them for doing simple adding and subtracting problems as manipulative for hands on math learning.  You could also estimate how many seeds would be in a larger pumpkin and count them (by ones, two, fives, tens, etc.)

Reading and Writing:  Find fall themed books such as Earl the Squirrel by Don Freeman, Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White, or The Little Old Lady who was not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams (all of which are Ebert's favorite picks!) After reading them, draw pictures of your favorite part or write a different ending altogether! You could also look up informational books on pumpkins and how they grow, fall farm animals, tractors etc. to find out more!

Pumpkin and Gourd Art:  Paint, carve, decorate...repeat! Does your child have a favorite theme or animal?  Create a pumpkin project that would go with that!  Look on pinterest together to create this.  The ideas are endless, and it will be fun to research together or make your own version off of another idea that you see! 

Happy Fall Everyone!

Renee Ebert and all your friends at Ebert's Greenhouse Village.