Friday, September 24, 2010

Learning about Apples ~ week 2

In the spirit of my approach for this year, we're taking our time with each theme, repeating activities throughout the week when we find ourselves ahead of schedule.  It's actually working out great right now. Last week was Apples Week 1  We had a great time and are both excited about more preschool days.

After breakfast each day, we do our Calendar Time.

We did a lot of apple learning outside this week.

Apple Toss & Catch: First we played catch with the apples. He's great at throwing and has good aim. He's improving on his catching skills.   Since I was playing, no pictures.

Ready, Aim, Fire ~ He tried to roll the apples into the circles. Very challenging!



Apple Races ~ We raced our apples down the driveway. We learned which ones roll the fastest (more small and round, the faster) and why some wobbled all around (very knobby/less round)

Feed Me ~ The bucket is hungry and we needed to fill it up with as many apples, while tossing from behind  on a line.

Apple Fractions Puzzle: We grabbed a bucket, our apples, some sidewalk chalk and a knife.   I showed him 1 whole apple, cut into half and apple, then into fourth and finally into eighth.  Then gave him the pieces and he got to reassemble the apple into a whole again.  He liked this.

Apple Fractions Hopscotch
He played hopscotch while dropping the apple pieces in the correct 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 section.

He got to stomp on the final apple ~ loved that!


Hide & Seek - Hot and Cold Game:  I hid an apple in the Family Room. Turbo would try to find it and I would say " colder, warmer, or hot" depending on how close he was to the apple. He LOVED this game. It took a couple times for him to really get it and process it all and now he asks for it most days.

Board Game ~ Hi-Ho-Cherry-O ~ Closest thing to the theme I have. It is a big success. Something he can play easily and enjoys.  One afternoon he took it into his room and played it by himself. Did I mention Lil Sweetie was napping? Oh yea, 20 minutes by myself! You bet I love this game.

Patterning: He laced red, green and yellow apples (faceted beads) onto a pipecleaner.  It made a bracelet and he wore it for a nanosecond. 

Counting ~ I used Confessions of a Homeschoolers Apple Counting sheets for Turbo to count the seeds from our apples.  I only asked for two sheets - low numbers and higher numbers, just to see if he has the concept and to work on simple addition. We took the seeds from 6 and slid them down to 7 to realize we needed to add one more.  I still think Math is a boarderline concept for him right now and need to think of more fun, hands on math activities.

Pre-Writing ~ Costco FINALLY has the Kumon books back! I seriously looked most weeks for months and months. Of course I bought all the ages 2-6 books   We're starting with My First Book of Tracing.  I want to assess Turbo and see if I can get him to slow down a bit and really focus on his pencil holding and writing form before moving on....we'll see.

Tons more Playdough/Pie making play ~ he continues to ask for this every day.

His imagination is in overdrive these days. Which says a lot for an already imaginative boy.  He was doing a lot of cooking on his own. He would say the funniest things to himself ~ "just gonna pop this in the oven for a few minutes" 

Cutting and Gluing ~ Confessions of a Homeschooler's cutting practice and cut/glue Apples onto a tree activity.

Books ~ We continue to read "Apple Pie Tree" by Zoe Hall. We talk about the seasons, lifecycle of the trees and apples.

Well, that's the bulk of our Week 2 activities.

I'm linking up to Preschool Corner over at Homeschool Creations

10 comments:

hamka2608 said...

very cool! Love your outside games!

Paperliciousgirls said...

Everything looks like so much fun! Will be definitely trying some of these at home!

Susan said...

Thanks for stopping by! These were tons of fun!

Susan said...

Thanks! We're officially moving our class room to our driveway :-) at least until it starts raining.

butterflywishes said...

wow totally awesome week!!! you are an amazing teacher!!!

Sandra said...

I like your idea about taking time with each theme unit. We did the same thing with our boys. Looks like a great week and I enjoyed reading your post. Great ideas!

Susan said...

Thanks Shannon, That means a lot ~ especially coming from you!

Susan said...

Hi Sandra, Yes, its the extra time that is really making all this work for us. I find that we actually get more done when I have less planned - does that make sense? Did you find the same thing?

Maria - Förskoleburken said...

Thanks for dropping by my blog! I love these apple-activities, thanks for sharing!

Jessica said...

What a bright little learner & such fun ideas!! What a great apple theme!
Jessica