a is for apple (week 1)

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For week 1 of preschool, I decided to go classic.  And, to me, nothing says "back to school" like apples.  I'm very "Montessori" influenced right now, so our activities for the week were mostly practical and hands-on.  The big way that I'm not Montessori is that I don't allow my kids access to the tot trays and activities whenever chose.  Instead, I chose the times when I think they might be ready to do something at the table and allow them to chose from a few options.  I've been calling them "work boxes" since they're contained in a 3-drawer plastic unit.  However, they're not technically work boxes either since I let the kids pick what they wanted to and didn't force them to complete any of the tasks.

So, here's what we did this week-

Theme: apples

Practical: chopped apples for apple pie and applesauce
                  planted an apple seed in a bag (to watch the "tiny tree" be "born")

Sensory: cinnamon play dough, which they chopped like apples and rolled like pie dough
                simple apple sensory bin
                apple themed bath

Educational: picture cards about how an apple seed becomes an apple pie and the seasons of a tree
                       Youtube movie about how apple cider is made and tasting some
                       explored the parts of an apple and found the "star" in the core

Work Boxes: sorted wormy apples from non-wormy ones (printable)
                       counted apples on trees (printable)
                       seed to pie sequence cards
                       pompom "apple" transfer with tongs
                       apple size sequence (printable)
                       wormy apples counting (printable)
                       "a is for apple" coloring page

Books: "The Apple Pie Tree"
             "Applesauce Season"
             "10 Apples on Top"

Song: "The Johnny Appleseed Prayer."  (..."the sun, and the rain, and the apple seed.   The Lord's been good to me!")

Outing: we have an apple tree in our yard so we checked its apples and observed the deer and squirrel as they got ready for winter (by eating our apples).  We also had a well-child check-up for one of the kids this week.

 Here's a peak at what our homeschooling/eating room wall looked like this week:

Follow In Our Pond's board "a is for apple" on Pinterest.

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