We had such a blast last week finishing up our unit on apples! The kids were so excited Friday when they were able to tell people around the school all they learned!
We learned about how an apple grows.

We also made these cute apples from Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies. They held our circle maps that had apple adjectives. {Hers are cuter with raffia, but I didn't have any! :( }

Thursday, we learned all about Johnny Appleseed by reading books and watching a little video that I rememeber watching as a child. We wrote facts about Johnny then made these cute Johnny Appleseeds using Cupcake's pattern. {Click here to grab it}.

The video...

Our whole group chart and individual Johnny Appleseeds...the graphic organizer is in my apple pack.

We also used apples all week to help us in math. We reviewed the number five and worked on decomposing, equality, and subtraction.

We used these with our Five Red Apples song to act out the song on a number line.

We used double sided apples to help us decompose the number 5

We used math sticks again this week with our song to decompose 5 a different way

As a quick check, we glued apples to make equal groups

We used apples (beans painted red) to act our song and introduce subtraction

Our recording page for the subtraction

You can get this math for free here, here, and here.

Friday was our big apple celebration and we had so much fun!
We did a little experiment to see if apples float or sink...

We also made applesauce, which is always a hit. We also had lots of other apple treats that the kids brought in. It was soooo yummy!

Mashing the apples - I used about 13 apples, brown sugar, water, and cinnamon. I like the brown sugar better than regular ;)

We had apple chips, apple oatmeal pies, apple dumplings, apple brownies, apple rings, applejacks cereal, applesauce, and apple juice!

To say that the kids had fun is an understatement. It was a blast!

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Vickie

Yay!! One of my most favorite weeks of the year is here - it's apple week!! I have no idea how or why I came to love this week so much, but I think it goes back to college where after one very long night of working on a holiday math project {and being the good students we were, we chose out of the ordinary holidays like Johnny Appleseed's birthday}, my two BFFs and I got on an elevator with a very cute guy who said something about how much apple stuff I had and all I could manage to mumble was something to the effect of "Yeah, I love apples." What a dork!! However, it did inspire my love of all things apple and Johnny Appleseed!
Here's what we've done so far this week...

We tasted a little piece of apple and thought of describing words to add to our big apple. The kids wrote these on their apple circle maps. I usually have the kids bring a pencil to the rug and give them their paper on a clipboard so that they can write the words as I write them on the chart. This keeps them engaged and saves time!

After we cut the apple, we learned about the parts of an apple. We labele our big apple diagram, then made our own. {You can see this original idea at What the Teacher Wants :) }

Today, we tasted red, yellow, and green apples. We compared and contrasted the apples on our apple organizer (love this idea I got back way back when from Little Giraffes!) Then, we graphed our favorites on a big class graph and then did individual graphs with our class data. {The graphing activity is in my Apples Aplenty pack}.

We also made these little torn paper apples that will hold our favorite apple writing that we'll do tomorrow {love getting fine motor in whenever I can!!}.

Whew! It has been a busy week already!! Are you learning about apples this week?

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Vickie

It is just me or is the school year already going by at warp speed? Maybe it just feels that way because it seems like I can never get caught up!! Last week, we learned about the number 5 with the five little ducks and with our five senses.

First, we introduced our 5 senses with this little anchor chart {thanks to Pencils, Glue and Tying Shoes for the idea!}.

Then, we each made our own to help us remember our senses. We used wiggly eyes for sight, jingle bells for hearing, sandpaper for touch, a cotton ball with lotion for smell, and a stick of gum {that melted a little over the weekend} for taste. They turned out so cute!

To help us learn about our sense of tatse, we also did our taste test again. We tasted limes, bittersweet chocolate, m&ms, and pretzels. We have an awesome new principal this year who bought all of the supplies for the taste test for all 17 of the kindergarten teachers!! I've never had a principal buy the random stuff I needed, so we are very appreciative to have her!

After deciding if we liked each taste or not, we graphed our favorites {I don't have a picture :( }. You can get the pieces for the graph and the taste test page here.

We also used my friend Deeanna's pack that includes lots of 5 Little Ducks activities...the kids loved these!

Acting out the song on the ten frame

Writing equations while we acted it out

Counting on to make 5

Using a mat and individual ducks to act out the story {we also wrote the equations on a recording sheet with this}

We introduced math sticks!! We love using these each week to help us decompose numbers...we sang the song and moved ducks then used our stick to help us make the equation

Love these!

Moving on to this week...it's one of my favorite weeks of the year!! Here's a little sneak peek...

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Vickie

In our reading series this week, we have been talking about fantasy and things in stories that are real and make believe. Our story this week was Pouch, but I wasn't crazy about it and wanted my kids to understand fantasy a little bit better, so I pulled out a lesson from last year. Yesterday, we read the classic Little Red Riding Hood. We talked about the parts of the story that were real and the parts that were make believe. This story really helped because there are some far fetched things that happen (people popping out of a wolf's stomach??).

Then, we sorted pictures as to whether they were real or make believe. I *tried* to make a cute Red Riding Hood to attach to our papers, but she didn't quite come out right. However, the kids loved her and that's all the counts, right?

Today we read Little Red Cowboy Hat and compared the story to the classic version. The kids loved it!

You can get the Little Red Riding Hood activities here {for free!}

We also made a little anchor chart to help us remember what fantasy means. Each child drew something that is fantasy, and we hung it on our chart that will remain in our reading area.

Our reading series also has us learning all about nouns right now. To start, we made a chart and I let the kids tell me all the people, places, and things they could think of.

Today, we sorted pictures into people, places, or things. {You can grab this here for free as well}

We also did a little activity from Nicole over at Rowdy in Room 300 that the kids loved! I forgot to take a picture of ours, but you can click here to get  to her activity.

Next week we'll still be working on nouns as well as apples, so I can't wait to use this idea and freebie from Alisha over at The Bubbly Blonde!

That's it for now...how's your week going?

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Vickie