Preschool at Home: Apples

It's fall--my absolute favorite time of the year!  Today, I am excited to link up with Tot School Gathering Place to share some of our fall activities from the past two weeks.

My little ones made hand and fingerprint apple trees (idea from Learn~Play~Imagine).  I have been trying to involve Emma in more of our "school time"--I think you can tell by her smile that she likes it!  She glued, painted, and tasted paint. :)

Isaac loves doing projects, especially anything involving paint!  It has been neat to see his ability to concentrate grow as he gets older.  I love how focused he is in the above pictures.

Little Emma has quite the red lips in this picture!  :)  

The finished trees are darling!  If you read our blog long enough, you'll find that I love any craft or project involving hands/handprints! 

With Isaac, I've been focusing on number recognition and pre-math activities.  Isaac and his sweet   friend, Landrie, cut their own tree trunks out of brown paper.  Then, they glued the green leaves to the branches and added "apples" (red poms) to each tree.  We counted (and counted and counted) the apples on each tree. 

Throughout this week, I've practiced beginning addition & subtraction with Isaac.  I'll give Isaac two apples while holding two apples and ask, "If you have two apples and I have two apples, how many do we have all together?"  Being able to touch and see the apples helps him a lot.  He likes the subtraction questions better (probably because they involve a storm!).  For example, "If you have four apples on your tree and a giant gust of wind blows two off of the tree, how many apples are left on the tree?" 

 I got this idea for a foam apple tree in the bath from the fall number bath on Momma's Fun World.

I sang the following lyrics to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?"

Picking apples, picking apples

off the tree, off the tree

Pick the number ___, pick the number ___ 

and give it to me, give it to me.

Isaac thought this was so much fun!  He sang right along with me, too.

Of course, Emma was right beside her big brother the entire time.  She picked the apples off as quickly as she could!

I think we've reserved every fall/apple book in the entire Fort Worth library system.  

Here are our favorite apple books:

The Apple Pie Tree

I think this book is excellent.  It starts in the winter when the tree's branches are bare and then shows what the apple tree looks like in each season.  

I Know It's Autumn  

Ten Red Apples

 Emma loves lifting the flaps on this fall board book.

Baby Loves Fall

Happy Fall, Everyone!

Now I Know My ABCs: Part 1

Today, I am linking up with Tot School Gathering Place to share a few activities that I have done with Isaac recently to work on letter recognition and letter sounds.  These activities are not elaborate--I have really been trying to only use materials that we already have at home.  (If you saw my craft cupboards, you'd know why!) :)  

Isaac has been very interested in letters over the past half year or so, so I've been running with it--plus, I have a lot of fun teaching him.  :)  

Letter Pop

I wrote letters with a Sharpie marker on individual bubbles of bubble wrap.  I tried to find a place to hang or tape it outside, but none of the tape was sticking well...and, I was pretty sure that he could dent our garage door if I hung it up there and let him hammer away.  :)   So, I anchored it down on the driveway with a few heavy things I found in the garage (no idea!) and let Isaac play!  

I simply called out a letter and let Isaac hammer that bubble until it popped...within a minute, he discovered that stepping on the bubble popped it even faster.  :)

Dot Paints

I randomly wrote letters on construction paper and had Isaac dot them out as I called out different letters.  

(This is a perfect activity to do while you're making dinner!)  :)

Clothespin Letters

 I wrote Isaac's name on a notecard and then also wrote each letter on a clothespin.  Isaac pins each clothespin onto the notecard.  This is a great small-motor activity for his little hands!  This last week I added our last name with clothespins to the bottom side of the card.  Isaac usually does this while I'm getting breakfast ready or while I'm setting up our school activities.  (I can't remember the blog where I originally found this idea.)

Magnetized Scrabble Letters

 Several years ago, my friend gave us magnetized Scrabble letters that spell each of our first names.  I used a overhead projector marker and wrote letters all over our refrigerator, and then Isaac covered them up with the Scrabble tiles.  (This would also work with the letter magnets that are at Dollar Tree or the Dollar Spot at Target.  Here's an Etsy shop that sells similar Scrabble tiles.)

Here are a few letter and alphabet books and videos that Isaac loves especially likes:

The Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary

B is for Bulldozer

Boz the Bear: BOZs and 123s

Letter Factory

Little Buds ABC

Spring Flowers: One-to-One Correspondence Activity

Today, I am linking up with Tot School Gathering Place.  We did this spring math activity last week to work on one-to-one correspondence. Isaac usually counts objects correctly, unless he gets excited.  :)  Then, he may leave an object out or count it twice.  

I taped contact paper onto a wall with the sticky side out.

Isaac counted out five flower stems and put them on the contact paper.

Isaac touched and counted the stems in order.  Then, he put the corresponding flower on top of each stem.

Then, he counted the number of dots on each flower and added the same number of leaves to the flower's stem.

In addition to working on one-to-one correspondence, this was also a great activity to work on number recognition.  

I am not much of a gardener, so this is the only flower garden at our house!  :)

Tot School: Sequencing Apples and Counting Apple Seeds

Today I'm linking up with I Can Teach My Child to share an apple activity Isaac and I did this week.

I used this printable and then added dots and numbers to represent the seeds for each apple.

We practiced sequencing the apples from smallest to largest.

We used black beans as our apple seeds. 

First, we counted the dots on each apple and then added the seeds.

Then, we glued them on.  (I love how hard Isaac is concentrating in this picture.)

All finished! 

I hung this on our fridge while Isaac was taking a nap.  After naptime, Isaac was eating his snack at the kitchen table when he noticed this project hanging and said, "My apples look so nice, Mommy!" :)

A printer, scissors, crayons, glue, and black beans...these are all things you probably have in your home for this project.  Other types of beans, Fruit Loops, or Cheerios would work in place of the black beans.  Or you could eat a bushel of apples until you'd saved enough apple seeds.  ;)

Tot School: Winter Fun

Today I'm linking up with 1+1+1=1 to share some of the fun winter activities Isaac and I have done over the past few weeks.  I'm not going to lie...last Friday, when our high was 77, I felt a little ridiculous working on one of these snowmen projects with Isaac.  We'd just come inside from a bike ride and were trying to cool off! 

Oh well..I'm hoping that we at least get a taste of winter weather here in north Texas like we did last year.  But for now, this is the closest to snow that we're going to get!

I made this winter sensory box using a lot of our Christmas decorations.  Isaac's favorite part was the "nose" (snow) in the bottom of the box, which was just extra fleece I had in my fabric drawer.

 Isaac made these snowflakes out of marshmallows, which I found here on this fun blog.  I tried to have him "glue one, then eat one"--but I'm pretty sure he ate 10 for every one he glued onto the paper.  :)

Isaac also did stacking....

and patterning with the different sizes of marshmallows. 

(Has anybody else seen these giant marshmallows?  My mom bought them over the holidays to roast s'mores, but we never used them.  After Christmas, she "donated" them to us...and they somehow just don't seem quite right to eat!  I'm not sure why--it might be the size, the texture, or the slightly gray color?  So, I decided we'd use them for crafts instead.)

My friend Holly introduced me to these large tweezers.  I've taken them out occassionally in the past few months and tried to have Isaac work with them, but he couldn't quite get the hang of it.  Last week, though, he was mesmerized by them!  I think this project of tonging the cotton balls and moving them into the egg crate was the quietest he'd been in days.  I love how intent he looks!

Last week Isaac glued cotton balls to make this snowman.  My friend Meghan "interviewed" her kids about the snowmen they made, and I thought I'd try it too.  I'd never done anything like this with Isaac, and I was surprised at his answers!  Here's what he had to say...

What's the snowman's name? Frosty Snowman

What does he eat? Carrots--Frosty Snowman eat the carrots.

Who are his friends? Carson and Santa Claus

Where does he live? Colorado

What does he like to do? Frosty Snowman read books.

What's his favorite color? Red--no, the snowman is red.

What songs does he like to sing? "Holy God Mighty"

Where does he sleep? in a bed

What toys does he like to play with?  toys

We also made a Spice Jar Snowman (idea from here).  (This was a great excuse for me to clean out my spices as I tried to find spice jars to use, too.)  ;)

 

Stuffing the jars with cotton balls...

stacking...

the finished snowman!

I also ordered several winter books from the library.  Out of all of them, these two were definitely Isaac's favorite.  Millions of Snowflakes has such fun rhyming sentences.  After just a few times of reading it to Isaac, he could fill in most of the rhyming words.  And I love when Isaac does the bear's big sneeze in Bear Snores On...it's adorable!