Apples and the Farm

     The days and weeks are just flying by!  I can't seem to get it all in, whether at home or school.  I'm still decorating my house for Fall, and I can never seem to finish up our themes!  We finished up apples this past week and finally began our Farm theme.  This is one of my favorite themes, and I just realized there is nothing about the farm on here!  Hopefully, that will not be the case this year! ;)  My Mrs. Wishy Washy theme is finished, but I have a few things that I'm tweaking, so hopefully will be up by Wednesday.  Like I said earlier, I can't seem to get it all in!  Anyway, here are some of the things that happened in our room last week.

Zero came to visit for our 20th day of school and read us a counting book about apples.

My assistant made this fabulous Seasons of an Apple Tree flip book.  It is just the cutest thing!  Our Scholastic Weekly Reader went along with our project, and she also read The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree.

I took this picture before the details were added, but they colored white snow flakes on the branches.  We were a little pressed for time, but you could have them paint snowflakes with white paint and Q-tips.

The Spring picture was just crepe paper glued on to make leaves and the apple blossoms.

Summer- They glued green construction paper squares on.

Fall- The same but just added some cut out apples.

Working on the project!

They really enjoyed doing this!

I love this project!  I also use this as part of our evaluation to evaluate whether they know the letters that are in their name.  They painted two paper plates of their favorite color apple, cut and glued the stem and leaf on, and then cut out the seeds of the letters that are in their name.  On the seed sheet was just a variety of letters, but they only had to cut out the ones that were in the name.  The seeds went in the pocket, and they wrote their name on the front.

Mrs. Wishy Washy came to visit to introduce our Farm theme.

She showed them how the pig rolled in the mud, the duck paddled in the mud, and the cow jumped in the mud.

I had them try to guess what we were going to do since all my animal friends were muddy.  Of course, they all said put them in the tub.  We did and before you know it, they were back in the mud!

We discussed the author and illustrator of the book and who the characters were in the book.  Next week we will be doing more this and will work on retelling the story.

I had a wonderful parent make me a Mrs. Wishy Washy and tub!  The kids just love it!  We then put together a sentence that said they were in the tub.

I like to give a little trinket for the letter of the week, if they complete and turn in their homework.  The letter was A, so I bought these little Atlanta Braves notebooks.  I encouraged them to write their popcorn words in their notebook.  I'm thinking about doing these also for themes that we have, and then they can record the words that we are learning.

     We don't have a Fall break, but we do have two early release days this week and picture day!  I may have to carry farm over into our Pumpkins & Spiders theme, but it is all Farm related, right?! :0  Have a great week!

Family Trees and Apple Trees

     We started off the week finishing up our Family theme.  I just can't leave a theme or project unfinished!  Then we moved on to our Apple theme, which we will have to finish up the beginning of next week.  It is just a vicious cycle, but everything seems to come out ok! lol  We also did a lot of cooking and eating this week!  This class just loves to eat!  I do incorporate several skills: math, following directions, and literacy.

We have been doing lots of graphing!  I think it's important for them to be exposed to many different types of graphs.  We had a few that did not have brothers or sisters, so I let them decide where they needed to be placed on the graph.  Hello, critical thinking! :)

I minimized pictures of them to put on their own Venn graph.

They really enjoyed this!  I think they really just liked the mini pictures! :)

We made houses made out of different food shapes.

I forgot to snap a picture of the completed house and following direction activity that we did after.

More cooking!  We made applesauce!  I love my apple corer/slicer!  It makes this cooking activity a breeze!

I also like that they are able to make the applesauce pretty much by themselves.

We brought in our favorite type of apples and then graphed to see which type of apples are class liked the most.

The completed graph

Apple Centers-  Tasting center.  We tasted apple juice, fresh apples, apple pie, apple muffins,and applesauce.  Everyone loved our homemade applesauce!

Most of them ate all of their tasting samples!

Art Center- We made apple prints.

Weighing Center-  They guessed how many blocks their apple weighed and then compared the apple to different objects.

Circumference-  They guessed how big around their apple was with string.

I love this picture!

     Today was so much fun!  This is always one of my favorite activities that we do all year!  We will be doing more apples next week and then moving on to the Farm.  I'm hoping to have my first thematic unit ready to go next week as a freebie!  Let's hope I don't have any technological issues! :) Have a great weekend and GO BRAVES!!!!

This and That

     I have been attempting to put these pictures up all weekend, but I just haven't had a chance!  We finished up our Apple Theme and celebrated Columbus Day.  We have a short week this week.  I really wish we didn't because I love learning about Scarecrows and Pumpkins!  Fall is my favorite time of year!

Working on our stained glass apples.  I love these!  

I love how they look in the window.  We are a little late getting these up, so we may not put our pumpkins up this year.

Popcorn word trees-  They glued a tree with leaves down on construction paper.  Then they had to copy the ten popcorn words that we've learned on to their leaves.

Listening Center- They listened to When the Leaf Blew In and Clifford's Apple Picking Day

Science Center- Sink or Float Columbus Ships

We made Ice Cream Floats!  First, we predicted whether or not the ice cream would float or sink.  Then we put the ice cream in the cup.

We poured the Coke in and waited to see what the ice cream would do.

It floated!

Yummy!

Best day ever! :)

Our number this week is four, so we read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.

We made our own Pete the Cat!

You can find this activity here.  We love Pete the Cat and can't wait to do more activities and hear more of his books!

Apple Fun

     Here are some of our apple activities that we've been doing the past week.

Labeling apple parts.  I did not realize that the core word was missing until after the product was finished...oops! :)

I just love Michelle over at Musings of Me.  I had to buy her new apple packet because it has the standards that I want to teach with the cuteness factor! You can check out her packet HERE.  We read a book about Johnny Appleseed and then completed this page.

I decided I wanted to change the seasons book that I have done for years.  Partly, because we just didn't have time to do all the painting and work that the book entails.  If you would like to see the book from last year, you can check it out here.  This book was in the apple packet that I bought from Michelle. 

Working on our Apple Season books.

Life Cycle of an Apple- Same as last year, but when I was cleaning out my supply room I found these cute little flowers to use.

     I have a few more apple things to post and some fall and leaves activities.  I really need to have longer days! :)