The Apple Pie Tree

 We wrapped up our Aa week (well, week and a half).  Our book for the week was The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall.  The kids really enjoyed this book.  My trays are little toned down this year, but if you would like more Apple tray ideas see this post from last year.

 The Aa sensory bin doubled as a tray this week.  This was Silas' favorite.  He found the letter A beads and covered the Aa on the apple which is from 1+1+1=1 .

 Counting the As

Stamping tray (picture is also from 1+1+1=1)

 I have no idea where the big A stamp went....still can't find it.  Silas was kind of bummed about that. lol

 File folder game.

 Play dough mat.  This little guy LOVES his play dough.  He will sit and play with it for a very, very long time.  Makes this mom pretty happy when she needs to keep him busy.  The play dough mat is from Homeschool Creations .

 This activity was all child led.  I was pretty amazed to see Silas' ideas.  We started off with him picking a coloring sheet from the Google image search I did for A coloring pages.  He colored two of them.  Then he decided he wanted to cut apples.  I quick made up a printout using clip art so that he could cut apples.  Finally he decided he wanted to glue the apples onto the pictures he colored.  What a great activity that he thought up all on his own!

 We have done this stained glass apple craft a few years in a row.  It is one of my favorites.  Contact paper, tissue paper and voila....done.  This year we used construction paper and I had them tear it themselves.  It took them longer and they enjoyed it.

 I saw this cute idea somewhere randomly online and it just popped into my head one day when the boys were asking for something to do.  Their hands/arms are the trunk and branches.  They used their fingers to make the apples.  Really cute!

 Our school door decorated with apples and the apple trees.

 Asa also worked on his All About Reading letter Aa lessons this week.

 They had the most fun making the apple pie.  This is a HUGE accomplishment for me as I am not normally in the kitchen (I really, truly dislike cooking and baking).

 They LOVED cutting up these apples.

 Before it went in the oven.

 This isn't A themed stuff, but it includes more of what Asa did this week. 

In math he worked with pattern blocks......

 And started learning about graphing.  We graphed boys vs. girls in our family....however, it is a tie so it was kind of anti-climatic. lol

In Sonlight this week for science we've been discussing the months of the year and we started with winter.  He painted snowflakes using doilies as stencils...... 

 Silas has to join in on all things painting.

 We also froze water.....and melted ice.  Funny little face.  Love him.

 That was our week (and a half).  Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner.
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Tot School: Apples in Action

We had a lot of fun with our Apple Theme the past couple weeks. If you missed the post on the apple trays or want to see what we are doing in more detail you can see them here.

Umm....this picture is just because I love it! I already posted it in Annabelle's review so sorry if it's repetitive. :)
Concentrating on cutting. He did this tray really very fast. Guess I need to find a way to make it more challenging for him.
He loves anything he can do with the big dice. If you don't have big dice I recommend them...they're one of our favorite tot school items (along with our pocket chart!).
Apple printing. This has been one of my favorite activities to do around this time of the year. I do it at home and I do it with my church kids....just so fun!
He is getting really good at recognizing and counting the numbers 1-10. I think that I'm going to have him start working on putting them in order (he struggles with that) and then we'll start introducing bigger numbers! This guy blows my mind with how fast he picks things up.
This is one of our recent phonics trays that I put together. You can see the most recent ones in more detail here.
Asa has been begging and begging me to do actual school work. I finally obliged and printed out some worksheets for him. He loved it and asked for more. Maybe I'll get him some Explode the Code books for Christmas. lol
Here are some tissue paper apples that we made. I should have outlined them in black construction paper. Hindsight.....
This is actually Annabelle's apple print wreath.
Silas really got into his trays this time....more so than normal. Sidenote: He is in the same clothes in all these pictures because I only took pictures of him on one day. He likes it when I focus more on him than taking pictures so I've had to set the camera down a lot more around him.

Putting letter A on each Aa. You can't hear him but he's saying, "A say ah". :) This guy is so observant...he knows all his uppercase letters (and a lot of lower case ones) just from watching his brother and sister (and Super Why).
Getting a little more consistent with his colors. He sorts them alright. Still having slight problems with red and green....and of course every color is still yellow.
He LOVES dot markers. Can we say stocking stuffer!
I've said this before, but these Lauri Fit-a-Shapes are wonderful! Time after time they are consistently his first tray choice.
Apple stamping. He really just wanted to eat the apples and paint with his hands. lol
Nothing to do with apples, but this is just a picture of our day off. My kids love puzzles.
Asa and Silas both do 25 piece ones (as long as they are in trays). Annabelle has been working on 100 piece ones! (Although she needs some help along the way).

Yeah....I tire my kids out. Silas has been refusing to nap sometimes in the afternoon (NNNNOOOOOOoooooo!!!!!). If he doesn't nap he usually crashes watching tv around 4:30. I found him on our mini trampoline one afternoon.
Baby, don't you know beds are so much more comfortable?
I hope that everyone else has been having a wonderful fall season! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1

Tot School: Apple Trays

Just wanted to share some fun apple trays that we are working on this week (and some last week too).

This print-out is more for Silas. I got the apple from 1+1+1=1. The alphabet beads I bought online from S&S Worldwide for something like $10 for a HUGE bag.
The rest of these print-outs are from 2 Teaching Mommies and Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Roll and cover game for Asa. He is really enjoying this one!
Sorting apple colors for Silas. I noticed that he was having problems determining red from green in this activity....really hoping the color blind trait is not passed down to him. :/
Silas LOVES these little Fit-a-Shape puzzles. Stuck with the apple colors theme. Same problems with red and green for this activity too.
Fun apple seed counting activity for Asa. Instead of using the paper seeds that they provided us with in the print-out we are using black beans.
This activity is supposed to be used for pre-writing skills, but I like to use it for cutting practice.
File folder game for both Asa and Silas. If you think you've seen this before you're right. It was in one of my earliest blog entries. :) All o f that hard work is paying off and getting reused.
Same for this one. Annabelle used this last year. I made a Big, Medium, Little apple sort.
Number puzzles for Asa. I actually printed out the 11-20 one for Annabelle since we're working hard on her number recognition for those numbers.
Upper case, lower case letter matching.
That's it for now! Check back in at the end of the week to see them in action. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1 and One Hook Wonder and Pinterest Tuesday