Apples All Around!

This week was full of fun and learning. We studied apples all week, one of my favorite themes during the year. It gives me that exciting feeling of a new year starting, and it reminds me of the fact that as hard as Texas is trying to convince us otherwise, fall will be here before we know it. Also, we always finish up with a yummy recipe, so I love that, too! This year we kicked off our unit by discussing describing words. After reading several apple books, we brainstormed some words that describe apples.

One of the books we really enjoyed was:

It led to an in depth discussion about apple varieties. We tasted five different varieties and decided which were our favorites.  In the sensory table we added red, yellow and green balls and measuring worms. I also added some cinnamon to make it smell nice. :)



We continued with our daily work, this week we added an apple ten frame to assess rote counting to 10. Everyone did a great job!



Pre-K 1's first craft was apple cores and it was an independent project from beginning to end. I love independent projects, they always reveal a lot about the peas personalities. It also shows how well they can follow multi-step instructions.

They get so much great learning: fine motor, creativity, critical thinking skills, counting (the seeds), and so on.

 

Here's the completed works!

Pre-K 2 made some apple trees for their first art project. They did a lot of cutting!

They made their trees and added a sweet little poem.

 

Next, both classes did some apple painting.

They traced and painted three apples by themselves.

 Both classes did some table work. Pre-K 2 did a roll an apple activity.

We sequenced the life of an apple.

Pre-K 2 did some apple patterning.

This week was letter B, so Pre-K 2 journaled letter B and drew things that begin with B. I adore Pre-K writing.

 We continued with our handwriting.



Pre-K 1 brought apples to school, and we graphed what color everyone brought!

We also made our first class book in Pre-K 1. Crooked picture, sorry!

Are these precious or what?

 Next, we weighed apples with cubes.

The peas went around in a circle adding a block at a time until we balanced the scale. It took 30 cubes!

Next we decided to see how long our apples would be if we laid them out in a line.

They were longer than our leader of the day! 

To end the week we read this:

Then we made mini apple pies!



I have the peeler/corer/slicer from Pampered Chef and this is one of the coolest contraptions around. And it's pretty fun to use! The peas cranked the handle for me.



After peeling, coring and slicing we added some sugar and cinnamon to the apples. Um, YUM.

Sadly, my apple pie picture is very blurry, but I couldn't help but add it because how sweet are these tiny apple pies?! Here's the recipe if you are interested in making some at home!

So we ended the week with apples pies after lunch with a little ice cream on the side. Because what's apple pie without a little ice cream?

 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Get your peg legs and parrots ready because next week we will be doing literacy, math and art pirate style!

 

 

Apples, Apples, Apples

 

Last week our theme was apples. We did SO many fun apple activities, and our classes smelled great all week. :) Our class guinea pig was pretty oinky with all the apples around, too. He is such an piggy when it comes to fruit and it made the peas giggle all week to hear how loud and demanding he was when he saw an apple! Here's a peek into our week, and if you can believe it, this isn't even everything we did!

 

We started with this simple apple book:

 Pre-K 1 made the seasons of the apple tree in art, using little arms as trees. So sweet!

Both our classes have journals we use weekly, and then the journals are sent home at the end of the year. Pre-K 2 drew apples in their journals this week.



I love watching how their writing and drawing evolves as the year progresses.

Below shows us making apple pie playdough, which was a pinterest fail! It smelled great and was so fun to play with the first day, but the second day it was super sticky and wet. Of course I still let them play with it, because where else are you going to have fun getting messy besides in Pre-K?

On Wednesday everyone brought an apple to school.

Ms. Rhonda made this really clever graph in Pre-K 2 out of a shower curtain. Love it!

 As a group activity they graphed all the apples they brought to school. 

Pre-K 1 sliced up a few of our apples and stamped with them.

For morning message, we examined an apple and then labeled one together.

Then both classes made really yummy apple treats. Pre-K 2 made apple pies using cresent dough. They smelled SO good.

We had the apple peeler/corer/slicer which is a pretty amazing invention. The kids loved helping get the apples ready.



Pre-K 1 made applesauce in the crockpot.

We had our applesauce with ice cream. It was so yummy!

We also learned some super cute apple poems and songs. Pre-K 1 made these apple trees to go with our poem.

Pre-K 2 learned this cute song.

Ms. Rhonda did this adorable activity with the Pre-K 2 class. They measured how many apples tall they were.

Everyone was close to the same height!

During centers Pre-K 2 added beads to pipe cleaners with number tags on them. This was a great activity for number recognition and rote counting.

Pre-K 1 counted apples onto apple trees.

In math, each group guessed how many seeds their apple had, then Ms. Angela cut the apple open and they counted and recorded the number of seeds.

We tore paper for fine motor and glued it on apple trees. Those are some pretty big apples! :)

After reading this favorite:

 Pre-K 1 made these:

They thought these were really funny and they turned out super cute.

We added some worms and apple colored tools to cinnamon flavored oatmeal for some sensory fun.

We also worked on our handwriting, and the peas are off to a great start in their handwriting books! 

And on Thursday, my mom came to visit! She lives in Victoria, Texas and always visits my class each year to meet my new group of kids and play. She loves this age group, and the kids loved meeting her. Thanks for visiting Mom!

It was a successful week and we had lots of fun. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!