Apples, Apples, Apples

Hello Hippo Families!

We had such a great week learning about apples!

Here are some hippo and apple highlights

• We opened a bakery/apple stand in the dramatic play area.  We had students calling in orders for real apples, pretend pies and muffins.  We also had students working the cash register and stocking shelves.  It was fun to watch the imaginations soar! (taking turns, using language)
• We read 10 Red Apples, and then used plastic animals and an apple tree with numbered apples to retell the story. (answering questions, sequencing, counting, recognizing numbers)
• We also read a book called Apple Trouble . We made apple hedgehogs and practiced sequencing the story and answering questions.
• We sequenced the stages of growing an apple (plant seed, grow tree, flower blossoms, flowers fall off then apple forms)
• The highlight of the week was making applesauce with the apples the children brought to school. After making the applesauce we had a taste test and the kids voted yes, I liked it or no, I did not like it.  We discussed the concepts of more and less.  
• After coring the apples, we used the peels (skins) to work on our cutting skills.  We talked about how to hold scissors. (sensory/cutting)
•  It was fun to use a recipe and then sequence the pictures of making applesauce after we had our taste test.  
• During gym, we played red apple, green apple (red light, green light), practiced positional concepts then balanced bean bags on our head and pretended they were apples. (gross motor, following 2 step directions)
• We played a fun game called "Applesauce". We handed out cards with shapes on them.  Each child received a card.  When it was their turn to turn it over, they either named the shape or called out "Applesauce" if their card had an apple on it.  Each time we yelled out applesauce we stomped our feet!  (gross motor, following directions, learning shapes)
• Our sensory tub contained beans, tongs and apple cartons with red, yellow and green apples. (pom poms).  We sorted the different pom poms into the correct container according to color.
• It was fun to make little apples with stems using playdough.  We attached them to a tree. We also used mashers, rolling pins and tins to pretend to be a bakery. (fine motor, sensory)
• In addition, we sorted real apples, patterned apples, counted seeds and matched them to the correct number, weighed apples, measured how many apples tall we were, observed parts of an apple using a magnifying glass and played with apples with our trucks and blocks. We also rolled them down ramps. (gross motor, counting, patterning, experimenting)
• We practiced recognizing numbers and letters on an apple tree. 
• After reading Ten Apples On Top, we cut out apples and glued them on top of a picture of our heads (cutting skills, following 2 step directions).  We also made towers with apple blocks and put worms on apples (clothespins on cardboard circles).  This worked on strengthening the finger muscles used for cutting and writing.
• The students decorated apples using a variety of materials.  We displayed them on our tree bulletin board.  (fine motor, making decisions independently, showing persistence)
• STEM activity-we gave the students paper towel tubes (tree trunk), popsicle sticks (tree branches) and red, yellow and green pom poms (apples) and the students made their own apple trees.  
• We asked the kids what they thought would happen to a peeled apple left out for a few days.  The kids came up with all different guesses. We will observe the apple on Monday. (participating as a member of a group)
• On Monday we will finish up our unit on apples by cutting strips of red, green and yellow construction paper, hole punching an apple, using crayons to do apples rubbings, painting apple trees using paint daubers and sequencing making applesauce. We will also use stickers to locate our HWOT letter on a pretend apple. (fine motor, sequencing)
• We signed in to our favorite apple treat. (recognizing our names, counting, recognizing and comparing numbers, making decisions independently)

During our 2nd Steps lesson, we reviewed using self talk and asking using a respectful voice.  Our letter this week was H for HIPPO. Our Heggerty lesson involved rhyming words and the beginning sounds of our names.

Book We Read
10 Red Apples
Apple Trouble

The Bad Apple

Ten Apples on Top

Questions to Ask Your Child
*What types of things did you do with apples this week?  (counted them, pretended to be in an apple stand, peeled them with an apple corer, cut apple peels, apple play dough, made applesauce)
*What did we do with the apple skins? (cut them in the blue tub and stretched them out to see how long they were)
*What animal ate the objects off the hedgehog's back in our story, Apple Trouble? Was it the squirrel or he goat? (the goat)

*What did we make to eat using apples? (applesauce)

*What is your favorite color apple?

Apple Fingerplay
Way Up High in the apple tree,
2 little apples were smiling at me.
I shook that tree as hard as I could.
Down came the apples.
Mmmm... were they good and juicy!
(CRUNCH)

Reminders 

Parent Teacher Conferences-Monday, Oct. 19th and Tuesday, Oct. 20th Please sign up if you have not done so.

Theis Pumpkin Farm field trip Wednesday Oct. 28th from 9:30-11:30- An adult must accompany your child. We will meet at the pumpkin patch not at school.

Next Week

Space and planets!

Enjoy the pictures!

Happy 4th Birthday, Drennan!

We measured our height in apples. I was 25 apples long.

After reading 10 Apples on Top, we made towers
using apple blocks.

Our sensory table contained beans, tongs and yellow, read and green pom poms.
We had to match the colored pom poms to the correct apple box.

How many apples are on top of your head?

STEM activity
We made apple trees out of these materials.

We counted how many apples long we each were.

We recognized numbers and compared them.

It was fun to put the farm puzzle together.

Our apple stand is open!

We practiced recognizing our names.

We practiced our cutting skills by cutting out apples
for our art activity.

We loved making hedgehogs based on the book we read.

Apples and Ramps

It was fun to weigh apples and find out which weighed more or less.

We used magnifying glasses to observe the parts of an apple.

We cut our apple skins.

We sorted and counted the different colored apples.

After we peeled the apples we then added the ingredients. 

It was fun to turn the apple peeler corer slicer.

This apple skin is as tall as Mac.

We started tracing our names this week.

What a great looking apple tree.

We made apples with playdoh and pipe cleaners that represented 
apple stems.

We counted the seeds and found the correct number.

Apples and Dump Trucks

We practiced naming and matching letters.

Here we worked on extending apple patterns.

We played with the props from our book, Ten Red Apples.

We practiced walking with bean bags on our head. 
We pretended they were apples, like the book,
Ten Apples On Top.

We built the letter E with wooden pieces.

After we cut out the apples, we taped them on the tree on our arch.

We practiced recognizing apple letters.

Our apple stand is quite busy!

May I take your order?

Sorting Apples

Blocks and Apples

We decorated apples for our bulletin board.

Apple tins, mashers, tools and playdoh were
fun.

We practiced positional concepts with the bean bags.

We also played red apple, green apple just like the 
game red light, green light.

We practiced cutting skills!

We practiced recognizing and matching numbers.

Journal-What is your favorite color apple?

We used pipettes to mix red, yellow and green water.