Fall is such a busy unit as it can go on and on in so many directions! For the first two weeks, our focus is on what "Fall" is as a season and what changes are taking place. THANK YOU for all of the wonderful fall goodies! We have our whole science exploration area filled with milkweeds, pinecones, acorns, leaves, flowers, cattails, pumpkins, gourds, sunflowers, apples, etc. You all did a great job! Magnifying glasses are spread throughout and the kids are starting to learn how to use them! Take a look at our picture below.
We played an apple tree game with a 1, 2 dice. We rolled the dice and filled up our apple trees. The second day, our older students rolled a second dice with the words, "add" and "take away", on it. Once they realized that "take away" was not a bad thing, there were lots of giggles and apples came and went. We had several scarecrow puzzles, matching games, and pattern blocks (not pictured). Craft foam apples floating in the water table was a huge success. Our apple poster was all about using our visual discrimination skills to match leaves to the correct apple. Felt trees and acrylic leaves and apples were added using number cards. We used strong hands to roll colored playdough to fill up the colored leaf cards, used our little pincer fingers to pick up beads and match them to the colored apples, and using tweezers and small scoops to pick up apple colored pom poms. One favorite activity was creating a tree on sticky paper using tree parts (trunk, branches, foam leaves). It is always fun watching how each child creates something different with all of the parts. Each one unique, just like all of us!
Circle time focused on BIG and little. We sorted big and little apples using their attributes ("It is a BIG, green, apple" or "It is a little, red apple"). We weighed small pumpkins and decorative gourds. We made a prediction on which item would be heavier and then we tested it using our balance scale. We explored sunflowers and talked about the seeds in apples. Did you know there was a star inside an apple? If you cut the apple side to side (not stem to bottom), the seed core makes a star shape. To find the star inside, Mrs. D told a story (no picture book, just a verbal story) about a "Little Red House with No Windows, No Doors, and a Star Inside). Our discussions continued on how "things" are houses for seeds, an apple is a house for a seed, a sunflower is a house for a seed, milkweed pods, pumpkins, etc.
We tasted the three colors of apples to see which one(s) we liked best. In gym, we became leaves floating in the breeze with our scarves and bounced leaves on our parachute.
APPLESAUCE! This is such a fun cooking project as the kids get to be so involved from start to finish. We used a special apple peeler, corer, slicer machine to cut and peel our apples. Everyone loves turning the handle and watching the "apple spaghetti" (skin), roll off the apple. Even though we did all that work, we add the peels to the cut apples to give the applesauce a nice pink color and to keep all those great nutrients! After we cooked the apples down, the kids are amazed to see how the apples changed and were so mushy. We used a food mill to squish the apples and to take out all the peels and any seeds that snuck in. Afterwards, we added some cinnamon and ate our yummy applesauce. Most kids came back for seconds and would have eaten even more if we let them!
