Autumn's Sweetest Harvest

Today, McKenna's family visited Terra Luz and shared with us some old fashioned, sweet goodness. We held our first "Cider Fest"!

The children were excited about the process, especially the grinding. Apples were fed whole into the grinder, which grinds them into a pulp that falls into a mesh-lined pressing bucket. The bucket is slid over to the screw, where a plate is inserted and the screw cranked down, exerting tremendous pressure and squeezing the clear juice from the pulp. Within seconds, this clear liquid oxidizes to the deep golden amber color we all know as apple cider. There was apple peeling, apple painting, apple hats, and full apple-tummies!

We thank the O'Connor family for coordinating, and bringing this wholesome event, to our school!

Apple Pie, Autumnal Painting & Washing

What's on our shelf this week:



It's been a bit of a slow week here at the Casa.
Two kiddies were out this week due to illness, so we've been hangin' low.

We read The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall, which has great illustrations for the kiddies and is easy for the kids to understand. As you probably figured out, this week, our focus has been on Apples and today, after the story, the girls and I made, you guessed it, Apple Pie!



They helped mix the ingredients for the crusts, rolled the dough, and spooned in the filling and it was our dessert after our lunch.









Art
We talked about Autumn and how the colors of leaves start to change during this season. Then followed up with Art using the colors, yellow, orange, and brown. Art is still very much a sensory experience for the kids and they love mixing up the colors, and at times, some even use their hands to apply the paint. It's not about the end product, but rather, the process. ;)





The girls did very well today using the potty. They are proud to wear their undies and during this transition period, I keep their shorts or pants off for easy potty runs. They're even beginning to head to the restroom without me at times, and are being self sufficient in getting started.

I couldn't resist posting this image of the girls cleaning up the art materials.


I cut up a sponge and they began to help me wash everything off. They love to help!


*And we have some art smocks arriving tomorrow.
Two mamas have volunteered to stitch some for the casa, and we have a few down. Yippee!

Spanish
Words we've been talking about often this week:

Yellow=Amarillo
Orange=Anaranjado
Brown= Café

Mama Tanya reading the girls a story.