Fun With Fall Using an STEM Framework (Science, Math, Technology, Art)-STEP 1!

We started our "Fun with Fall 2013" project today with...drum roll please...step 1!

To integrate Nature of Science concepts when we out to collect our leaves, we discussed which trees the leaves fell from as well as why they fall in the fall and then took pictures of them for later research . Science Made Simple gives a great straightforward explanation for kids as to why leaves change colour and fall that I plan on using later when I ask them to do their own research-and bonus, it also has easy fall experiments!

When we got home we knew we had to bag them so they would keep, so I integrated a little bit of math by having them sort the leaves. That's all I said, just "sort the leaves" in order to let them sort in whichever way they wished. Given their ages, I expected them to sort by colour-and colour is what they did:

That's as far as we got the first day of "Fun with Fall 2013", but we could have gone one step higher and sorted by shape or size within colour as well.

The entire outline of "Fun with Fall" can be found here. Our next step will be to spend some time counting them-things like the total amount and how many colours of each and I will use that to very briefly introduce the mathematical representation of a fraction with a brief discussion with the not-so-littlest one as to what parts of a total are. The littlest one and I will discuss more and less with connections to physical and numerical representations of each. I may get her to also do some adding and introduce some "word problems" along the lines of "how many leaves are not red"? etc.

To be honest, I haven't figured out just how far I will take this yet, I plan on basing it on how they respond to each idea on a day-by-day basis. But I guess that's part of the advantages to homeschooling; that I have the option of being able to take it day by day and cater it to what and how my children learn. And yes I know, all teachers everywhere do with their students, but I don't have the same constraints they do-I am free to alter as I see fit, and my children are free to learn as they see fit!

Stay tuned for part 2-T.B.D.