Lost in the Leaves

Everywhere I look I see beautiful fall leaves! Well, everywhere inside my school, that is. Living here in South Florida  the leaves on the palm trees don't exactly change color, the air doesn't get that crisp chill, we don't go apple picking. We know it's fall because we can get pumpkin spice lattes again at Starbucks or we take part in a conversation that goes something like this: "Hey, are you sweating?" "You know what? Not as much as usual!" And there ya have it. Fall in Florida.

But, we make up for it in the building with copious displays of all things fall. I was walking to a friend's room and happend by the cutest turkey! This one comes from A Cupcake for the Teacher.
Googly eyes just ratchet up the cuteness factor of any project.

I love this next activity. I didn't actually do it with my own class yet. These pix are from some other second grade classes in the building. It's called Lost in the Leaves and it's an oldie but goodie from Mailbox Magazine.

The kids write clues about an object that is lost in the leaves on the front of the project. They can either draw a picture of the object or draw it before they cover it with leaves. Love how these turn out. The kids have fun guessing what's hidden under the leaves of their friends' projects too.

And our last lovely leaf project is this beautiful leaf wreath (Kind of a tongue twister, huh?)

During non-instructional support personnel week (which is a real thing btw - and it was this week) each grade level recognizes a group in the school. This year we had the cafeteria ladies. Each of our second graders decorated a leaf and then we attached them to this giant wreath that we hung up in the cafeteria for them. Came out cute I think!

I am so crazy jealous of all y'all that have a break this week! We work all the way up to and including Wednesday! We barely have time to shove the turkey in the oven and clean up the mess then it's back to work on Monday! Turkey day is at my house again this year, so I've got lots of shopping, cleaning and cooking on my to-do list for the next few days. oh joy. It will all be worth it for those 20 glorious minutes it takes everyone to eat the meal that takes me a week to prepare! Right?