Pumpkin Fun

Fall is hands down my favorite season. I love everything about fall, the smell, the colors, the fashion, the weather, etc, etc. Fall feels like holiday kick-off to me. One thing I spotted this year that let me know fall had arrived was the pumpkin. I pass about 3 pumpkin stands on my commute to work. These stands started popping up in September, so I began my itch for October. I love pumpkins, so pumpkin week is one of my favorite themes to teach in Pre-K. We had a lot of fun this year with it!
      The best thing we do it simply cutting open the pumpkin. I cut the top off beforehand, and the children reach in and pull out the "guts." They love it! A few were a bit shy about getting messy, but most of them asked for a second turn. When we came back inside, the kiddos made their own pumpkins. They got an orange double sided (folded) pumpkin with a stem. I used a stencil found online. I placed glue, pumpkin seeds and yellow yarn in front of them. The outside of their pumpkin read, "What's Inside?" This is based off a craft I found on Pinterest.

Final Products

The inside look

Close-Up

Much like the apple math center from No Time for Flashcards, I did a pumpkin seed count. The only variation I came up with was exchanging the tally mark cards for numbers. I recycled my magnetic numbers from the squirrel and nut count which worked great with the cookie sheets. The child chose a number card, attached it to the side, and placed the correct amount of pumpkin seeds on the pumpkin.

The center set up

Ready to go!

A fun idea I got from KidsSoup was pumpkin pie topping. My grandmother had given me tiny pie pans for cooking while I was student teaching. I never got to use them until now. All I did was cut out some brown circles, place them at the bottom and set out cotton balls. The children grabbed chip clips, clothespins, or tweezers and placed the topping (cotton balls) on the pie. This could easily be made into a counting activity as well. I chose to use it as a pre-writing activity for developing that pincer grasp.

Simple fun

Finally I found a pumpkin play dough recipe I really liked. The play dough smelled wonderful, and it was the perfect consistency for play. The recipe also explained how to dye noodles. I placed the green "stems," play dough, green pipe cleaner and a bag of fake flowers out on the table. I instructed the children to make a pumpkin patch after learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin. Knowing about vines, stems, yellow flowers and pumpkins, the children made a beautiful patch. I was really proud of their creations! The below is an example I put together for photo sake.

Of course to complete our study of pumpkins as well as apples from September, a field trip was in order. The children enjoyed picking their own apples from the orchard and taking home a pumpkin from the patch. The hay ride was a big hit too!. Fun times! I love October!

Apples Galore

A successful pumpkin picking

Hayride fun!

Apple Theme Fun

Fall is a wonderful time of year! I love the weather this time of year and the beautiful colors. As a teacher, I love it even more for the many, many themes fall offers. This year to kick off the start of a new school year, we chose an apple theme for September. Here are just a few ideas I came across over the past couple weeks:

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!