Nos Gustan Manzanas! / We Like Apples!

    Fall Fun means Apple Fun! 

   We started off the school year with an apple tasting every morning during circle time, in the bigger primary classroom. Throughout the past few weeks, the kids have tasted a multitude of different apples, including my new personal favorite: Pink Pearl Apple!

   In Spanish class, we learned all about Manzanas!

    I couldn't stop seeing this cute Apple Craft from Kinder Craze all over Pinterest and Facebook, so I knew I wanted to get my munchkins to do it as well; so we did it with some Spanish learning mixed in. We learned the three main colors of apples (rojo, amarillo y verde) in Spanish and learned the phrase "Me Gusta", which means "I Like."

   I set out the materials at each of the two tables:

       -Contact Paper

       -Pre-cut Apple Templates in each color (Template available for free at Kinder Craze)

       -Pre-cut Tissue Squares in Red, Yellow and Green

       -Pre-cut Leaves

       -Brown Squares (for cutting a stem)

  (I am not a huge fan of pattern art, but since my Spanish class time is usually an hour, time was an issue. And anyhow, the main purpose of the project was not the art, but rather learning the Spanish Phrase that accompanied the art project.)

The munchkins chose their favorite apple and practiced saying, 

"Me gusta la manzana (their color choice.)"

    When they were all done filling in their apple template, I placed another sheet of contact paper on top and cut each one out and attached their Spanish sentence. Some were able to write the color word on their own, and I wrote the sentence for those who were not able to do so.

    They really came out beautiful and all the windows in our whole school house are decorated with these lovely Stained Glass Apples!

   As I have been gathering some bilingual materials that are appropriate and useful for the children that I am teaching, I have come across a couple of good resources, from Open Wide the World and Nicole & Eliceo.

This awesome Parts of An Apple (in both English and Spanish) came from an awesome 

Apples Pack by Nicole & Eliceo.

In addition to the daily whole group activities, I also switched out a few things on my 

work shelves to suit our study of Apples.

Apple Count & Cover:

(created by me and available for FREE here)

Pattern Block Apple Trees:

Shape Tracing:

(from Open Wide the World's Apple Packet)

So, lots of learning on apples has been happening! 

And now I think the kiddos are ready to move on to something else!

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!

Investigating Apples...and some Apple Pie Playdoh Fun!

   Happy First Day of Fall!

   One of my very favorite fall themes to do every year with munchkins is APPLES! I remember the first few years that I was teaching, I had a gazillion apple ideas and I wanted to do them all! That still holds true today, as I am trying to squeeze in lots of apple learning fun!

   After reading a few non-fiction books about apples, my munchkins dictated a few facts about apples. I added a little apple shape at the beginning of each sentence, to help them learn how to track print. I chose a few children each day to "read" the sentence and track the words with my pointer. Some kids have simply repeated after me and track the print as they say it, while others have already memorized parts of the sentences and can "read" and track the print.

    I created an Apple diagram to display and teach the parts of an apple. We dissected an apple, identified the parts and then the munchkins investigated the apple halves in our Science Center and drew their own diagram of the inside of an apple.

   We have  also been having TONS of fun playing with our Apple Pie Play Doh! 

   I LOVE to make my own playdoh and I follow this exact recipe, for playdoh that comes out perfect everytime! (And for this particular batch, I added red food coloring and apple pie spice.):

1 Cup Flour

1/2 Cup Salt

1 Tablespoon Cooking Oil

1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar

1 Cup Water

(Add food coloring & scents, as desired)

*Mix all these ingredients together in a pan and put under medium heat, stirring every few minutes, Once its consistency changes from being liquidy to a semi-solid state, lower the heat and stir a few more times. Once it reaches a soft consistency, remove it from heat and place it on a cutting board to cool for a minute or two and then knead it.

Kids love it!!

    The munchkins have been working alot on fine motor skills lately, to strengthen those little muscles in their hands and fingers. Here, they rolled the playdoh into little "worms" and then used craft scissors to cut up the "worm" into tiny pieces.

I threw in some apple cookie cutters the next day.

 They did some more rolling work with these awesome (and free) Number Mats

 from Life Over C's.

    This batch of Apple Pie playdoh smells so delicious, I am not surprised at all that the munchkins pull it out every single chance they get! Any activity with this Apple Playdoh is a fun, sensory fine motor activity!