To start our festive week of home learning, pumpkins were a natural start. Coming home from work, the children were still in bed. So up I went and woke them saying they didn't want to sleep through Pumpkin Day. Both older ones said "Pumpkin what?" By 10am, all three were up and fed and ready to go. They couldn't resist checking out what I had planned and tried playing with the pumpkin and art board first. So I went with pumpkin bowling and after a few practice rolls, the game was ON. Now my plan was for babygirl to learn some turn waiting and this is NOT easy for her. Little guy was perfectly happy in his high chair as long as after each turn we took, he got the pumpkin to throw onto the floor. Queenie we found out is exceptional so we had to make it harder for her, hehehe, and babygirl stood in front of the soda bottle pins with her legs open. And yes, she still got a strike. A side learning I didn't think about was babygirl wanted to write the score numbers herself on our homemade scoresheet. I wrote it on a napkin and she copied it onto the scoresheet. After three turns, though, babygirl could not take not going again and again(waiting her turn), so the game melted. Next idea, we carve the pumpkin. The seeds were for snack time and the flesh scrapes for our upcoming pumpkin dessert contest(saturday) and the shell to carve. Yes, I made sure this little pumpkin would be fully used. Babygirl helped some, little guy played with the pumpkin guts and Queenie made me proud with her skills. We made 2 cups of puree from a 4 pound pumpkin while we still have a gorgeously faced pumpkin that we lit up during snack time. Babygirl planted some guts and seed in her garden for next year. Then inspired, Queenie wanted to set up snack time as a party so I let her take care of it while we played some. I taught babygirl the Ten Little Pumpkins song and a Mr Old Pumpkin finger play. She prefered the song. Then it was decided we must dress in costume for the snack time party. Mom is a ghost, babygirl a witch dress, Queenie in her fave dress and little guy in crocodile. Babygirl did each of our makeup>On the menu, guts(strawberries thawed), broken bones(roasted pumpkin seeds) and apple slices(ok I forgot our name for them). >

I am sad that babygirl seemed to have several meltdowns during this time of only 1 1/2 hrs. I had hoped it would hold her interest better and the time would be extended but it seemed too much still. My goal is to find active learning for her to hold her interest but it is hard as she has many issues with social skills, even within the family,as well as not able to do some activities(occupational type stuff,don't know how else to put it). Tomorrow is Ghost day with a few chosen activities. She enjoyed the eraser rhymes so happy to try a slightly longer one tomorrow. It has her erase the rhyming picture off our dry erase board. Makes her an active part of the poem. But right now she is rotting her brain on Sesame Street. I know, TV bad.