Fall learning #1 - apples

Here are the fall activities we did over the last month.  Great fun learning and growing together.

10 Apples up on top

Apple measurements (they even got to measure mommy!)

Apple Science - Jar 1.Clean apple cut and placed in jar. Jar 2. Apple cut rubbed with our hands (germs) and placed in jar.

Roll an apple tree

Roll and apple tree

Monthly memory verse: "A man gathers a crop from what he sows." Gal.6:7

Fall sensory bin

Parts of an apple

eraser stamping parts of an apple

Books:

• Mr. Putter and Tabby Pick the Pears
• The Giving Tree
• Apple Fractions
• The Man who Sold the Shade
• Mr. Peabody's Apples
• Apple's, Apple's, Apple's

Recipe: Fill a crock pot with cored and sliced apples, squirt of lemon juice and 1/2 c water and let the crock pot do the rest.  Mash or use an immersion blender for the consistency you like.

Homemade applesauce and apple butter. Yummy!

School Daze

My sweet girls and some of their favorite animals.


I know anyone who regularly reads this blog may wonder what has happened to me, but I assure you I am still here. I've had several blog posts about our weekly school activities looming over me for a month now but still have not made time to post them. In an effort to relieve the number of posts and my failing memory I will just post the highlight of the last several weeks and if you have any questions about what you see leave me a comment. Thanks.

Letter of the week: P is for Princess, Q is for Quilt, R is for Rainbow (St. Patrick's Day week) , S is for Spider, T is for Transportation, U is for Umbrella (weather week)

I have not posted all our crafts or activities but just a small sampling of what has been going on.




Examining a nature tray.


My puzzle girl. She loves them and is really good at them too.

Just because. I can never get enough of her eyes and her sweet smile.

Thanks.

Valentine learning fun

I know this is incredibly late but I thought I would at least post some valentine pictures so I can have record of what we did that week.

Valentine basket: wrote letters and sent them to family members as well as each other.

Craft: Love bug. Cute and simple

Fine motor: sorting beads, counting activities, stringing beads, valentine erasers

Tic-tac-toe


Clips on a heart basket

Science: magnifying glasses to examine rose petals


Weaving ribbons


Dressing basket: includes buttons, snaps, zippers


Played shape memory with cards from 1+1+1


Upper and lowercase alphabet match

Thanks!

Preschool - O is for Ocean

O is for ocean. We had a great week (even if I am behind in posting it). Lots of great activities for learning with an ocean theme. Here is a sampling of our at home learning.


Lydia had a lot of fun with her shell collection. We put pearls in each shell and matched the number word with the correct number of pearls. We also did some addition with the pearls as manipulatives.

Emma sorted large and small shells.


We finger painted an ocean scene and put on ocean themed stickers to complete it. I have to confess, I consider myself a fairly crafty person but this is the first time I have ever finger painted with the girls. I made the paint from a recipe online and the girls used almost all of it. We will definitely be doing this again soon.

We had imaginary play with these mermaid felt cutouts and book but I also used number cards to match the number of mermaids on the board. We played by both finding the right card and/or the right amount of merpeople.


O is also for opposites. Great game I found at the Dollar Tree. Gotta love that store!

Octopus snack made with banana, chocolate chips and marshmallows.


Number word shell match.

I also made a game to match color words. Used some pages from an ocean coloring book, cut them out, colored them different colors and had the girls match the color words to the right color sea creature. I am thinking of making this into a file folder game for our beach vacation this summer.

I had so many different activities planned for the week that we didn't even get to them all. I will have to revisit the ocean again in the near future.

Have fun learning!

Preschool - N is for nest

N is for nest ..... or nightingale. I couldn't really decide since we talked about all different kinds of birds.

Not too original on the craft here but still turned out pretty cute. I just drew a "nest" shape and let the girls put multi-colored tissue paper in it. We added an "N bird" just for fun.


We actually did a lot of activities for bird week including this bird feeding activity but I have almost no pictures to show for it.

Emma matched colors with color words. She is still working on pinching the clothes pins to the card. On a side note: the box provided a great deal of entertainment for her as well. Opening and closing, locking and unlocking.

We also did an activity where we sorted all our stuffed animals into pets vs. wild animals.

Sorry there is not much more in depth review of our week but I really like to have pictures to go along with explaining what we did so just trust me when I say it was a good week but we have little to show for it.

Thanks for reading.

International Popcorn Day

I have a book that says today is International Popcorn Day. I got out our popcorn containers and we put sight words and numbers on pieces of paper and crumpled them up. The girls had a fun time learning and I love when they do.

Preschool - M is for Moon

Here is a look at what we did last week for letter M.

We combined our letter craft with our book for stArt and I think it turned out pretty cute.



We collected "moon rocks". For this activity I hid rocks around the room and the girls searched for them. I am always amazed that this simple seek and find game is so much fun but it is always a huge hit even if little girls don't always remember where they hid things when it is their turn. We play a hide and seek kind of game a couple times a month. These kinds of games lead to a lot of counting too.

I cut out a bunch of different size circles (planets) and they girls painted them with watercolors. They turned out very pretty. Lydia insisted on making a mobile and though I ave it a good try in the end I just glued them to a plastic coat hanger. They didn't know any different and I think they will hold up longer this way too.



We placed "planets" (paper circles) in order from largest to smallest and also talked about which ones were the same sizes and which ones were different. Yes there are more than eight planets as some are exactly the same size. Makes it a little bit harder for her.



Number and alphabet puzzles are always a hit.



We sang a planet song and I found a moon poem that was pretty cute.

We blew up a bunch of balloons and learned a song about planets and put them in order. No, the balloons are not in any sort of size order just a visual.



We made another easy bake oven cake, this time a moon cake with marshmallows for the craters. 30min + for 3 small cakes is not my idea of a great time but I am not a 5 year old girl.





We also did some space puzzles and various other space materials I have collected over the years. Counting Coconuts had a great space unit recently and I would love to use some more of her ideas when I revisit space.

It was a fun week learning and playing together. To see what is happening in others preschool home classrooms check out Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.