Pumpkins & Harvest

Today D&K helped bake pumpkin cookies & muffins (2 super-easy recipes using something I rarely buy...cake mix!). :o) We acquired the recipes from links HERE.

We used spice cake mix for the cookies with mini chocolate chips. Mmmm! I was surprised the kids enjoyed these over the muffins.

We used chocolate cake mix for the muffins (they took much longer to bake than the website stated). K did a great job mixing the cake mix, water & pumpkin together. She loved putting the muffin cups in the tins. The muffins taste okay, but the favorite of the D&K are the cookies!

We read The Pumpkin Book today where the kids learned a few new pumpkin terms and reviewed what they learned yesterday. We also read about more varieties of pumpkins and they're excited to see some tomorrow when we go to a farm!

K did a poem with 5 Little Pumpkins and I broke down and bought the Brach's marshmallow pumpkins for her to use with the poem. (We changed the poem to read "bats" instead of "witches" - you can print it HERE.) I will be giving the remaining ones away tonight. I can't have them in the house! :o)

K enjoyed using the dot pen to mark all her ABCs on THIS page. I asked if she wanted the color the stems & leaves, her reply, "not today."


D completed another grid puzzle today - a Jack-o-Lantern...
He began making a list of words about the harvest/what he knew about the harvest. When I asked him what equipment farmers use, he didn't know, so I showed him how to look it up on the computer. He discovered the "combine" and then I had him watch 2 parts of a video on the history of combines. (I don't recommend the 3rd part of the video due to the language.) The first two parts were interesting and he enjoyed learning about the farm machinery. Do you know why the combine is called the combine? We do now! :o)

D and I spent a few minutes looking up verses in the Bible that are related to the harvest. He hasn't memorized the books of the OT yet, but he knew right where to find the NT books! Gen 8:22 (I LOVE this verse - it's right after the flood where God promises Noah there will always be seasons as long as the earth remains.) Matt 9:37 & John 4:35 are verses about working the harvest ("people & their need for Jesus"). A little harder for D to understand, but he was able to find them without much difficulty! I know the meaning will come with time & study.