My personal favorite was teaching the children the parts of the apple. I wanted to do more than just a poster printed off the computer. When researching teaching ideas, I saw an adorable "Parts of the Apple" display on a Google images search using a pocket chart. It was then I remembered my brother had fixed my flannel graph board. This inspired me to use felt to teach the parts of the apple. As suggested by my director, I printed off labels and used Velcro so they would stick. The children had so much fun helping me stick up the pieces and labels each day. They picked up the scientific names very quickly!
I used a worksheet from KidSoup to reinforce the apple parts. I could not find one with the names already on the paper, so I just made my own dotted words for the children to trace. Not only were they practicing the parts of the apple, but we were honing in on those writing skills.
We went right from parts of the apple to the life cycle of an apple tree. Many may be familiar with the finger play "Eat an apple, save the core, plant the seeds and grow some more." Thanks to Pinterest, one of my classes made these. I had extra black beans left over that the children glued, and I reinforced with packing tape.
The reason I had so many black beans on hand was thanks to an idea I was led to on No Time for Flashcards' facebook page. The idea led to some great one-to-one correspondence as well as pre-writing skills with that pincer grasp. The cookie sheets came from Wal-Mart, a 97 cent find!
Another Pinterest inspired idea was an apple taste test. The first letter I introduced my students to was the letter M, so I called it the Apple Mmm Test. I provided each child a plate with an applesauce MUFFIN(that they helped me MIX & MEASURE the class day before), apple jelly & apple cinnamon cheerios with a cup of apple juice. I provided each child with a stack of pre-cut colored apples. They followed my instructions about what to eat. As they tasted the food they brought the proper color to put on the graph if they liked the treat. After everything was finished, we compared the results.
I decided to celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day with the class as a bit of a special event. I wanted to go outside and play a group game for something different. When I looked up ideas online, I was not finding anything fitted with what I wanted to accomplish. Finally I settled on planning my own relay. I took 2 pans from the children's play kitchen set and got 2 fake apples. The children were instructed to place a hand behind their back, and hold the pan with the apple in it in the other. We reviewed how Johnny Appleseed wore a pot on his head and planted apple trees. It took a while for them to figure out how a relay race works, but they had a lot of fun trying.
Another idea I found one a random web search was using paper bags as your basket which turned into a fun letter sorting activity for the children:
I also enjoyed this idea from Teach Preschool. The kids really loved scrunching up their paper for their paint brush. I wanted to see how their imaginations worked, so some of these trees looked quite interesting. Some of the children really did a good idea of dabbing their ball into the paint and stamping it onto the paper, and some of the children rubbed their paint ball all over the place. I enjoyed seeing all of their trees.
To leave off, I haven't needed my whiteboard for anything yet, so here's what I came up with to keep the room looking exciting:
Another big hit was making these little guys. The sad thing was when it came time to eat the pie, many of the kids said they did not like pie. However, they had so much fun mixing the ingredients together and helping with the measurements. I also now have an awesome recipe for Thanksgiving!
That's what I have to share about my first Apple Theme. Looking forward to many fall fun themes in the weeks to come!
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