Learning about Apples ~ week 1

Turbo likes to be intrigued. He is very curious and if I can excite that part of him…then we’re sure to have some fun. Part of that is, anticipation.  I had this Five Senses chart out when he woke up. He immediately wanted to know what it was, what it said and what we were doing with it.  I casually said it was for our preschool and he’d find out after Breakfast.  That piqued his curiosity!

Then it was time to get started!  We started with calendar time, post on that coming soon.  Then I grabbed a closed brown paper bag, hiding an apple (another point of anticipation), and went to the 5 senses chart.  

We reviewed the 5 senses and then Turbo got to stick his hand in the bag and guess what was in there. I was a little surprised that he easily guessed apple!  We first went through the 5 senses with the apple whole (reminding him not to bite it yet about 10 times). When we got to Taste, he said "Mommy, I have to bite it now" with a huge smile.  We went through all 5 senses twice, once before tasting (responses above the line) and once after (responses below). This was a very interesting exercise. I learned about him and was really proud of his thoughfulness.

General Learning ~ Apple Types;  Similarities / Differences & Parts
As he was eating his prize, we did some General Apple education. He examined several types: Fuji, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Braeburn.  We talked about the similarities - apples, have the same parts, grow from seeds, grow on trees, etc. Then the differences of outside appearance and inside taste.  Finally, we cut open and examined the insides and learned all the parts.  It was reinforced throughout the week with a little felt apple puzzle.

Grouping: 
He grouped apples by type, color and size. This was really easy for him. Next time we'll do graphing along with it.

Taste Test ~ Of course we had to taste and compare all these different apples. I didn't get a picture for some reason. Maybe because we both LOVED this part of the day.  My favorite continues to be the Granny Smith and Braeburn. Turbos were "all of them".

Sequencing ~ Sequenced the eating of an apple. Very, very difficult for Turbo. We did it together and he was happy it was over.  We should have used real apples and taken bites out of each of them. It would have given it more meaning ~ but I didn't think of it until just now.  Sadly, I can't remember right now where I got the sequencing cards. I will update my post when I find it.  Found the cards at Kidssoup.com

Art/Crafts
He colored in the "I like Apples" booklet. After we're done with apples, I'll make a little lapbook for us to review and remember this fun theme.

Apple Prints

Playdough
A wonderful blogger over at Counting Coconuts has some great Playdough ideas! She also did Fall this month and did Cinnamon Playdough with little apples and let her little one make apple pies. It was a HUGE hit over here. 

 

Books: 
We read Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall ~ love her books  & 10 Red Apples by Pat Hutchins  We did this pocket chart activity for 10 Red Apples.  We start with 10 apples on the tree. When we got to 7, Turbo announced he was almost done. When we got to 5, he looked at me and said - "I get it. Can I be done now?" Uh, ok.  We won't be doing these types of counting activities again.  Cute activity ~ just not a good fit.

 Spoon Transferring Apples

  

That's the bulk of what we did on this short week.   Stay Tuned for week 2!

I'm linking up to Preschool Corner. Check it out for more great Preschool Ideas!

Pumpkins and 5 senses

I wanted to do a 5 senses pumpkin activity with Turbo for weeks. This week we finally had time!

While Turbo was napping, I put our workmat on the kitchen floor with the pumpkin in the middle. When we came down he was immediately interested. "why is the pumpkin there, what are we doing, why is the desk on the play mat...."

We sat next to the pumpkin, I told him he had 5 senses and asked if he wanted to use them. I played a guessing game to introduce the senses.  "Ok, here's number one, can you guess what it is?" Then point to my ear. Of course he said ear and I said, "Yes, and the ear hears things. Hearing is a sense."  We did all five very quickly.

Then we went through the 5 senses while exploring the outside of our pumpkin.  For instance, I asked him to touch the pumpkin and how it felt.  If he didn't give an answer right away, I asked leading questions "does it feel smooth, sticky, rough, soft etc." Then he would say yes/no.   I asked him to guess what it tasted like since I didn't want him licking the outside of the pumpkin.

His answers:
TOUCH: Smooth, soft*, hard, bumpy, heavy. Stem was rough and poky
SMELL: good and dirty (um, ok)
HEARING: quiet and butter (I'm at a loss on that one)
SIGHT: round and orange
TASTE: he projected it would taste sweet.
 * I made a mental note to explain the difference between smooth and soft as he described pumpkin skin as both. 

After his exploration and a good game of Pumpkin rolling, I asked what he thought was inside it.  He said toys! To show me he got a little toy and put the pumpkin on top.

After carving it open, Turbo pulled off the top and said "There are SEEDS, Lots and lots of seeds. Toys, nope."

He spent TONS of time scooping out seeds!  When he was done with scooping out, he scooped them back in. 

Then we talked about the 5 senses again for the inside of the pumpkin:
TOUCH: Slimy (this was his word, he said it so matter of factually)
SMELL: Good
Hearing: Quiet
Sight: Messy
Taste: Yummy. I gave him a very tiny sliver of raw pumpkin.

Carving a pumpkin face isn't something I wanted my 2 year old doing. Since things work out better on activities where he's the primary doer and I'm the observer, we saved that for next year.  I gave him a marker and he was happy as could be!!  He also learned about smearing. 

Good thing I waited until we had time. We spent 75 minutes on this one! Seriously, we've never ever spent this long on any single themed activity before.  I even ended it before he was showing signs of being done.  Got to love Open Ended toys!!