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. 

Cute and Easy Thanksgiving Snack

Check out this fun idea I found for Thanksgiving this year! I found the idea on That's What Che Said. These are great for class parties, after school snacks, or even a preThanksgiving dinner snack to tide the little ones over while they wait. 

Gobble, gobble!

Here's What You Need

• clear food prep gloves
• popcorn (we used bagged kettle corn)
• rainbow fishies 
• small googly eyes
• construction paper
• twist tie

Here's What You Do

1. Fill the fingers with fishies and the rest with popcorn then twist tie the bottom.
2. Add googly eyes on both sides
3. Cut an elongated hexagon for the beak (see the picture above) and a red wattle.
4. Fold the pointed parts into a beak and glue the wattle to the back.
5. Glue the beak and wattle onto the thumb. 

Easy peasy!!

Have an amazing Thanksgiving weekend and enjoy your time with family and friends!

B is for . . .

 . . . butterflies painted with bubbles!

Check out this post to get an idea of what we did then come back and read below to get more details on paint, dish soap, and water ratio. 

I don't have exact measurements, but I'll tell you what I did. Then, you can experiment with your own ratios to see what works for you. I'm such a visual learner that I made a little picture. I used a little dixie cup for each color and did something similar to the picture below then mixed it all together.

I don't have exact measurements so try it out different ways until you get a ratio of paint, dish soap, and water that works for you.  If you have too much water your colors won't be very vibrant. If you don't have enough water, you won't be able to blow bubbles.
After you have blown the bubbles, lay your paper on top of the muffin tin, then carefully lift it off without letting any of the colors drip. If you find some of your paper didn't get color on it, blow more bubbles and lay the white parts over the bubbles.  Lay it flat and let it dry completely before moving it. Some of the paper will have thicker paint on it and but letting it dry just like that, it enhances the effect.

. . . balancing while picking up letter Bs

. . . blocks and learning numbers. Can you build a tower that high?

. . . bugs that you can eat! (Celery, peanut butter, and different types of pretzels)

Just taking my caterpillar on a walk

I is for Igloo

Don't limit yourself to gingerbread houses this year. Try making an igloo with your kids this season. For more specific instructions, click here. We used these exact instructions except we used Styrofoam cups that I cut short instead of cupcakes. 

A great book that goes with this activity is Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett. 

C is for Cookie

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!

Here are some of the fun things we did during letter C week with cookies.

We read this awesome book:

We listened to this awesome song:

We made some sugar cookies

We did this amazing sharing cookies activity. Click here for more details about it.

Thanksgiving Apple Turkey Snacks

Here's What You Need:

mini Peeps (we used chocolate)

craisins

apple

toothpicks

peanut butter

gumdrops 

Here's What You Do:

1. Attach the craisins to the peeps with peanut butter

2. Attach the peeps to the apples with peanut butter

3. Use toothpicks to put gumdrops like feathers on the apples. 

Great Halloween Snack!

 We studied bones this week and it reminded me of this great snack we did a couple of years ago. These are a great, easy snack to serve for Halloween. They are made of large pretzels, large marshmallows, and white chocolate. 

 For more detailed instructions, click here. 

S is for . . .

. . . silly scissors

. . . shape bingo. I used the cards found at Preschool Mom. Thank you for the free printable!

. . . star connect the dots.

. . . sewing.

. . . skipping.

. . . strawberries.

 

R is for Rainbow

Pipe cleaner, large marshmallows, and fruit loops.