Homeschool–A is for Apple

- Abigail is 2.5 years old (30 months) -

- Adam is 4.75 years old -

 

A is for Apple

This week, (ok, the past TWO weeks), we used Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Letter of the Week curriculum and did A is for Apple!  We read several library books about apples over the week.  Each day, (that we did school), we read the “Abby the Alligator” AlphaTales book, and the “Amazing Active Astronauts” poem from the Scholastic Teacher Express ABC Poem of the Week e-book.  The kids love the repetition of reading these each day.  We thought it was fun that our very first AlphaTales book was about an Abby!

Abby’s ‘A’ Activities

A/a Apple Sorting

Color Puzzles


Apple Seed Counting

Shape Matching Puzzles

‘APPLE’ and ‘apple’ Letter Matching

Aa Do-a-Dot Page

 

Tot School Activities

Shape Wheel
She needed my help to open the clothespins and was done after just 4 pins.

While Adam was working on Math one day, Abby did stickers in her special Tinker Bell notebook that only comes out when Adam is working in one of his workbooks.


Another time she colored in a “workbook”.  I thought it was so cute to see her color in little details like Ariel’s lips.  She colors a few details and then moves on to another page.

Making a zoo with animal magnets

Both kids had fun with our stacking bowls.

She loves to use her “Doggie” as a picnic blanket for tea parties.  She sets up any little figurines or toys and has tea parties with them.  Here she was using the bowls as not just tea party guests, but conveniently, as tea cups as well!

 

Adam’s ‘A’ Activities

Aa Do-a-Dot Page

Aa Poke Page
He used a jumbo push pin to poke holes along the letters.  He thought it was really cool to be able to poke right on the carpet!

Apple Seed Counting
While Abby was counting the 1-5 numbers, I gave Adam the 6-10 ones.  He figured out really quickly that they went in order and therefore, he didn’t need to bother counting.  That’s what I get for giving him easy stuff!
This is him saying, “Look, I’m done!”, about 5 seconds after he started.

Letter Hunt
He circled all the Aa’s on the page.  At first he circled the entire word ‘an’, and then crossed out the ‘a’ and re-circled the ‘a’.  Cute.  He’s obsessed with writing his name so it goes on pretty much everything he does!

Pre-writing Practice Pages

 

Preschool Activities

Adam did a few pages in his Math-U-See Primer workbook.  He’s having fun with it!  There is a lot of repetition, so I told him he could skip some of the pages and move on if he wanted to.  He wants to finish all the pages!  I don’t know where he gets his Type A tendencies from….

He loves his “Kumon: Let’s Cut” book!  We went through several different kinds of scissors and finally found these and they are awesome!  It has made learning to cut paper so much easier for Adam!

He’s finally done with the coloring pages in his Handwriting Without Tears Pre-K workbook, so it’s on to using the wooden pieces.  Here we are singing along to some songs that teach the names for each piece, (i.e. big line, little line, big curve, little curve).  Abby had fun tagging along.

 

Combined ‘A’ Activities

Our art project this week was Handprint Apple Trees.  We made trees with their handprints, then used their fingers to make leaves and grass, and finally a pencil eraser to make red apples.

Finished paintings

 

For science we did an apple tasting!  I bought 7 different kinds of apples and we talked about the different characteristics of how they looked and tasted.

Adam’s favorite looking apple was the Red Delicious.  Abby’s was the Cripps Pink, aka Pink Lady.  Can you guess why??

We ran out of time to taste all the apples, so we did it over two days.  Adam was great and tasted each one.  Abby, who is entirely too picky, had one bite and was done.

Here is our Apple Tasting log.  Both Adam’s and my favorite tasting apple was the Cripps Pink/Pink Lady.  It’s the closest to my real favorite, Honeycrisp.  Sadly, I haven’t been able to find Honeycrisps lately, but now I know that Pink Ladies are close!
Is that right?  The plural form of Pink Lady apples is Pink Ladies?  It seems weird.

The carnage.
The kids had fun cutting open the apples to find the star/flower shape inside and then picking out seeds.

With those seeds, we did a Letter A Collage.
Adam’s is on the right, Abby’s is on the left.

Each of our Letter of the Week themes has a Cut and Paste activity.  Right now, I’m pre-cutting it for them and then they get to pick a piece of cardstock and glue it on.  Hopefully, in a few months, Adam’s scissors skills will enable him to cut out some of it himself.

Adam           and             Abby

In a spur of the moment trip to the zoo with their Nana, I was pleased to be able to weave “Animals” into our A week!