Weeks 4 and 5: Apple Theme

Last week, we were all fighting colds and bad attitudes so we only did a couple activities. So instead we took our time to complete our Apple unit and finished it up this week.

When I first started searching for ideas on Pinterest I was totally overwhelmed. Apparently apple units are pretty popular with the preschool crowd. So I just started pinning everything that caught my eye, then picked out some of my favorite ideas.

Alphabet Activities
I bought a 36 pack of apple die-cuts at Dollar Tree for $1. I wrote a lowercase letter on 26 of the apples and scrambled them up, then gave them to Lucy to arrange alphabetically. At first, she was daunted by such a task, so I started to help her arrange them. I put down a and z then encouraged her to fill in the rest.

We also did this activity, which Lucy deemed "way too easy." I printed off a picture of a basket of apples with letters on it. We also printed the corresponding pictures with the matching beginning sounds and Lucy paired them up.

Sorry. She was moving.

I got it from this apple printable pack (my favorite from all the ones I pinned).

Math
Lucy did a number maze from the above printable pack. I only made her do the teen numbers since she's golden on 1-10. I also found a cool apple addition printable.

We actually did this activity twice because Lucy liked it so much! And I loved the visual representation of adding the red and green apples to see how many apples you get total.

We tried out our first bingo dabber activity: drawing a number card and dabbing the corresponding number on the apple tree. (From this apple pack again.)

We also did this basic die-rolling/counting game. Lucy loved it - mostly because she's ridiculously lucky and beat me every time.

Sight Words
I had 10 apple die-cuts left in the pack after our alphabet activity, and we spent all week reviewing our 9 sight words we've learned so far, so we used those last few die-cuts for a fun sight word activity. I explained it all in this blog entry, but basically I wrote the sight words on the die-cuts and hung them in our backyard apple trees, then Lucy "picked" them and identified them. 

Fun and Games
It wouldn't be a complete apple unit without a trip to the apple orchard! Despite the fact that we have apple trees in our own backyard, the apples aren't ripe yet, and there's an orchard not far away that has all kinds of free activities to do. So we rounded up some friends and headed off to the orchard. We didn't actually do much that had to do with apples other than buy a bag of pre-picked Cortlands. But the kids had a blast playing together. :-)

Earlier this week, Lucy found a recipe on Caillou's website, printed it off herself, and brought it to me saying she wanted to make it. It happened to be a recipe for apple buckle, so Wednesday evening after the orchard, she and I worked together to make it. Lucy loves helping in the kitchen, but this time I really tried to point out measurements and numbers and make it a little bit of a learning experience.

Success!

Lucy loves mazes, so I printed out this apple maze for her:

Source

And then we made some apple sculptures inspired by this. Ours didn't hold up quite as well, but the girls still had fun with apple pieces and toothpicks!

Whew! There you have it! Next up: monsters!