The autumn-themed templates on Activity Village are great for an art session, but they can also be used to create an autumn-themed board with different words and phrases.
Learning Autumn Words
By Shelly
Over the weekend my daughter and I had some autumn themed templates out for an art session. My son like the look of the autumn templates and wanted to join in but he was not in an arty mood. So we suggested he cut out a bunch of templates in coloured paper and create an autumn themed board with different words on it. You can find links to the specific autumn templates we used at the bottom of this post.
Autumn themed templates, cut out and ready to use
To help him get started his sister and I created a few examples for him.
Starting with a few autumn themed words
That was all he needed. He had so many ideas for autumn themed words.
Writing out words on the templates
And then he started writing out little phrases.
Starting to write out phrases on the templates
I must admit that he had started with our usual trace around the template and cut it out practice but he was coming up with so many words and phrases and trying to spell words that normally he would avoid and I was so excited that I quickly printed a few extra templates out onto coloured paper for him and helped him with the cutting. I really wanted to keep his writing/ spelling momentum going while it lasted.
We have a few cork boards that normally hang on the walls with the kids' pictures and some learning activities on. So I took one of those boards off the wall and cleared it for him and he starting filling the whole board up with his words and phrases.
Pinning his autumn words to the cork board
What amazed me was he kept coming back to the table, wanting to write more and more. Every time he would go and add some of his new words and phrases to the board he would get inspired and return with a new word or phrase.
Writing more and more words and phrases
I think part of the reason he kept going for as long as he did was because his sister and I were busy at the kitchen table so he was not “working alone”; he likes company when he is busy with an activity. But I also think he really liked the satisfaction of seeing his own words and phrases pinned up on the board.
Filling the cork board with his autumn inspired words and phrases
I love that we managed to use our templates for some writing and spelling practice and he has even asked if we can leave the board in the lounge area this week as he thinks he might want to change a few of the templates. His sister kindly cut out a few extra coloured leaves for him to use this week as he was getting very tired of all the cutting.
I am hoping this might be something that we can do with him for other seasons / holidays. I think a board filled with Christmas templates and Christmas words might just have to be attempted in December!
Here are the templates we used:
This is a guest post from Shelly. Shelly is a home educating parent of two children aged 8 and 10. She blogs at ofamily learning together where she shares ideas on the different learning activities that they do including lots of hand-on maths, arts and crafts and anything else that is part of their home educating lifestyle.
You can find more guest posts by Shelly, and a list of all our guest posts, here.
