Tot School - Apples

I love all things Fall, so this is just the beginning of our fallish themes...pumpkins, Halloween, pumpkins, farm animals, Thanksgiving, and more pumpkins! This week we learned about apples, apple trees, apple farms and orchards, and uses for apples. We had a lot of fun, and I even convinced my kids to try some new kinds of apples.  If you knew them you would understand that this felt like an incredible feat!

Day 1
We read How To Make An Apple Pie and See the World. We have read this book many, many times, and K never gets tired of it. We took it a little further this time, and found all the different places mentioned in the book on our map. E is getting much better about listening to stories that are a little longer, and he actually sat and listened the whole story.  For Tot School I usually try to use books that are at his level, but I just really wanted to use this book. :)

For our project we made apple pies...out of construction paper. I found this idea in a Mailbox magazine, so I had the template they provided for the "crust". I printed this on brown construction paper, but you could just draw or print a circle on a piece of paper or even use a paper plate and color or paint it brown. I cut out a bunch of apple slices from white construction paper before hand just to save time, plus E hasn't used scissors yet. The kids glued the slices onto the crusts to make their pies, and then used a paint brush to cover the top of their pies with glue. Then they sprinkled white glitter (sugar) and cinnamon on top. I love these, and they even smell good. Our loft smelled like cinnamon for the rest of the day!

After our pie making, we played a simple and fun game that K and E kept playing and playing.  It was nice because they could play it without me.  (I bailed after the fourth round!)   I cut out 20 apples from red construction paper, and then just spread them around the room.  I told them the apples had fallen from the tree and needed to be picked up.   I had K count her apples when she was done, since it never hurts to add in a little math practice. 

Day 2
On our second day, we read Apples for Everyone from National Geographic.  I love the pictures in this book, and how it simply explains everything a toddler/preschooler needs to know about apples.   I also have the pumpkin book, and I will probably get a couple more from the series. We also read Apple Farmer Annie, which is another of my daughter's favorites.

I had bought a few different kinds of apples at the store yesterday, so we had an apple tasting. I had braeburn, granny smith, gala and pink lady apples. I usually buy gala apples (they always seem to be the cheapest, and now I know why).  K and I liked the pink lady apples the best, and E liked the braeburn. I was surprised that both kids liked the granny smith as well.  I remember not liking them as a kid, but it was actually pretty good and not very sour.  I will definitely be branching out when it comes to buying apples from now on.

With the leftover apples from our tasting, we made apple print paintings.  I cut the apples two different ways, and was going to give them red, green and yellow paint.  I ended up being out of red, so it ended up being pink, green and yellow.

K and E weren't quite done painting, so they made some hand prints and got even messier!

We finished up apple week by coloring an A is for Apple coloring page from Fun with the Alphabet.

I took pictures this week.  Yeah!  Goal accomplished...now I just need to get used to doing it every week.