Friday, September 21, 2012

Apples

Theme: Apples
Age: Honey Pot is 2 years and 4 months old



Apple Book

We pulled out one apple-themed book from our library this week. It’s called Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace, and is about a family that takes a trip to the orchard to go apple-picking. The text was quite easy for her to understand in most parts. But this book does go into great detail about apple varieties, parts of an apple, etc., so we just skipped over those pages. She seemed to enjoy it, and I love that there were several aspects of the story that we could relate to throughout our apple week (i.e. apple-picking, stamping and making applesauce)!


Apple-Picking

We had such a wonderful time picking apples at the orchards! Honey Pot was a huge help, and loved munching on them as we picked. Yum, yum!



Apple Stamping and Snack

I had seen this craft frequently on Pinterest, and thought we’d give it a try. Looking back, I should have used red, yellow and green paint (as those are the colors of apples) but for some reason I was thinking of autumn. So we used orange instead of green, and it looked very festive!

We had picked three varieties of apples at the orchard. So I sliced one of each in half, and stuck a corn skewer onto it as a handle. (This worked so well!) Then I demonstrated how to dip the apple into the paint and onto the paper. She quickly got the hang of it, and really enjoyed it!




As we continued on, I noticed that less paint is more effective. The prints look so much better!



Then we sliced up each of the three remaining apple halves, and had a sweet snack!


Making Applesauce

Honey Pot and her Daddy made applesauce this week! She was such a great little helper. We had her move all the sliced apples from the cutting board to the bowl. Then later, she helped as we cranked the food mill that we borrowed from  her Grammy. We may just have to invest in one of those because this turned out just delicious!





Apples and Shapes

This activity, as well as the next two, came from the blog 1+1+1=1, a great homeschooling website with tons of ideas and free printables. Honey Pot had to match up the apple halves with the same shape. I helped her get started…


“It’s a tent!” she exclaimed, after bending the piece up a bit.


And then she really got the hang of it.



Apple Size Sequencing

Honey Pot loved this activity! I asked her if she wanted to start with the biggest or the smallest. She decided on the biggest, and worked her way backward from there. She did an awesome job! When she finished, she even asked to do it again.





Do-A-Dot Apple Tree

I had meant for Honey Pot to use her magnetic pom-poms for this worksheet. But, well… we couldn’t find it anywhere! So I improvised and pulled out her Do-A-Dot markers instead. Ah, well.




What a fun week, and we are so excited for the upcoming season. We’ll be doing a beach theme over the next two weeks to prepare for our vacation. But stay tuned beyond that for some fun autumn and Halloween themes!