Tons of Math Fun With Apples... and a little Freebie!

   We have been knee deep in our Apple Unit! My preschool munchkins have enjoyed the science behind apples-as we have learned alot about apples and have investigated the inside of an apple.
   We added in some math fun for our Apple Study. We read the book, Ten Apples Up On Top, by Dr. Seuss, and each child worked on their fine motor skills to stack as many "apples" as they could before they all came tumbling down. I used small foam blocks in the colors of red, yellow and green and also added little apple stickers, just for the fun of it.

They were all so very focused on stacking as many "apples" as they could.

    I think the most that any child stacked was twelve... and they all kept on trying to get their stack to be higher! It was good, competitive fun!

   Patterning is another fun activity that we did with Apples. We used the same "apple" blocks over the course of a few days, to practice making AB patterns.
   As an assessment type of activity to gauge their grasp on AB patterns, the munchkins created an Apple Pattern Crown. They created and glued an AB pattern, using two colors.

 Then we measured their little heads and made a cool crown!

    We also worked on our counting and number identification. I created these fun little Apple Count & Clip Cards (and picked up another set from Preschool Printables) and added some clothespins in our Math Center. Grab a FREE copy of my set here or in my TPT store!

    I have to say, the plastic clothespins I had were horrible! The kids kept managing to break them apart! I am definitely getting wooden clothespins for any future Count & Clip activities.

    And for a more tasty, hands on Apple math activity, we made an Apple Pizza! Talk about YUM! I have never made it before, but I knew it was easy to make. Turns out, it tastes alot like apple pie and/or apple crisp! Absolutely delicious!!

Here is the recipe:

Pie Crust: 2 cups of flour

                  1 tsp. salt

                  2/3 cup shortening

                  5-7 tsp COLD water

Prepare pie crist above OR use refrigerated pie crust. (We opted for the refrigerated pie crust!)

Place dough onto a greased pizza pan. Spread to the edges.

Slice 7-8 apples into thin slices. 

In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tsp. of cinnamon. Toss apple slices in and mix.

Layer the dough with the apple slices.

Topping: 1/4 cup flour

                1/2 cup sugar

                1/2 cup softened butter

Mix ingredients until it is crumbly. Sprinkle on top of apple slices.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

   The munchkins helped us in each step of the process: slicing, measuring, mixing, etc.

   Each child came to the table to slice up a piece of an apple... (Great fine motor work!) 

Some were obviously more skilled than others, but they caught on after they tried cutting a few slices.

The children helped to mix the butter, sugar and flour for the topping and helped us soften up the butter.

They mixed the apples pieces into the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

We laid the apple slices on top of the dough.

And added the crumbly topping.

We popped it in the oven and in 20 minutes:

 Delicious APPLE PIZZA!