Apple Cider Time!

One of my favorite things of Fall is when all the apples are ready to be picked.  We have our own apple trees this year but of the 5 only two of them produced fruit.  And one of those trees only had 9 apples! But they were huge - the size of large store bought apples, very sweet and crisp! The other tree produced a small fruit, a bit tart and makes a great baking apple.  I also have a crab apple tree (I guess that means we have 6 apple trees) that I made my first crab apple jelly out of.  It is really sweet with a pleasing apple taste - great on toast!
The apple trees at my parents house had a great year and that means lots of apple cider! We took a little field trip out to their place to spend the day pressing cider.

Official 1st Taste

It's a winner!

Working hard - Playing harder!

Great Grandma came up the hill for a taste.

In home school we learned all about Christopher Columbus and found a fun coloring activity that turned into a ship:

Off to explore the New World

I found these fun little lacing activities at a craft store 2 for $1:

Great practice for tying shoelaces

Matching colors

Next up we will start a unit study on the US States and the US Flag! I browsed some thrift shops this past week and found some great materials for that as well as other studies all for under $4. Here's my loot minus a few file folders I pick up for .10 ea:

We are also working on telling time, money and value, Spanish words (colors, numbers, animals) and with my oldest - our learning to read book.

MadCounty Mama