A is for . . .

. . . apple picking

We used our fine motor skills to pick apples off a tree with tongs. The kids rolled a dice and then picked that many apples off the tree and put them in their bucket. For this activity we used a 6 sided dice and practiced counting the pips (dots) on the side of the dice we rolled. Then we picked that many apples off the tree until our tree was bare. This center was meant to work on the one to one principle when counting. i.e. we count one time for each (one) thing we see.  

I love Makaius's concentration face! :)

For the next apple picking activity we used a 12 sided dice. There were numbered apples on the tree. The kids identified which number they rolled then picked the corresponding apple off the tree. For this activity we were working on identifying numbers. 

 
 . . . ants on a log

Celery, peanut butter and raisins. You can't get more classic than this snack!

. . .  ants

We made thumbprint ants on a letter a. Each child made sure the ants had 3 body parts, 6 legs, 2 antenna, and a face. 

 . . . apples (again.) :)

We did an activity with 10 apples up on top. We did the project seen here, but added an element of complexity. I wrote the numbers using dots instead of writing them completely. The kids connected the dots and traced each number from 1 - 10. Then the kids put the apples in numerical order onto their headband and glued them on. We were working again on number recognition. 

Simply Awesome Q-tip Skeleton

Skeletons are inspiring us this season and helping us get into the Halloween spirit. For letter B week we learned about our bones and what they do for our body. We learned that bones give us shape and protect us. Without them we would be a mushy puddle on the floor.  Here's a simple skeleton we made using long and short q-tips. 

Here's What You Need: 5 long q-tips 8 half q-tips black paper paper cut out skull liquid glue Here's What You Do: (for younger kids do steps 1 and 2 for them to help them get started) 1. Glue 1 long q-tip to the middle of your page 2. Glue the skull at the top of that q-tip 3. Use the short q-tips to glue ribs on each side of the back bone. 4. Add legs and arms. Easy peasy lemon squezzy!

Shapes

Every class that I have taught is different and has their own personalities. This class cracks me up because I cannot get them to look at the camera for the life of me. I try to be as quick as I can when taking pictures of the students during center time or class so I don't disrupt the class time. So sometimes we don't get the best shot and sometimes I can't get them to look at the camera, but we just move on. So I thought I'd throw that disclaimer out there because this class is the "looking dramatically into the distance" picture taking class. Maybe they all have great modeling careers ahead of them. :) Pipe cleaners and straws make an amazing opportunity for kids to be creative and learn about shapes or letters. We worked on making shapes and identifying them during centers time. For more instructions see this post here.

Every year we read this amazing book called Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert. We use her inspiration of making animal faces using simple shapes to create our own animal faces. Each child is given a picture of their favorite animal and we decide together what shapes should make the different features of the face. I provide them with precut shapes and they assemble the faces. I must say that this year is definitely our best batch of animal faces yet! We got to make some really fun faces like rhinos, giraffes, and elephants. Check our your child's amazing creations, you are about to be blown away!