This Week in Kindergarten is Brought to You by the Letter A

This week in school Christian is learning all about the letter "A" and apples.

He is really enjoying our new curriculum, but let's be honest: Kindergarten just doesn't take long when you are teaching one child, especially compared to the Fourth Grader. So I thought I'd spice things up a bit this week. I remembered when Ansley was in Kindergarten and all the fun things we would do, so I figured Christian shouldn't miss out. 

I found a great lapbook from Homeschool Share that was all about apples. If you aren't familiar with Homeschool Share, it is a really great, free resource that has TONS of unit study ideas, tie ins to books and lots of lapbooks. You just download them, and you're all set. I found it so very sweet and encouraging that Christian was SO EXCITED about his lapbook. He couldn't wait to show Mimi when she came over for lunch and to show his Daddy when he got home from work. It was precious.

Lapbooks are really easy to assemble, too. You just take two manila folders and overlap them so there is a little flap hanging over on each side, then glue it down in the middle (like a smaller version of the old school science fair projects). This is the cover of Christian's lapbook.

Here is inside on the left. I let Christian glue his own stuff down. I had to let go my idea of the perfect lapbook. It's still cute, right? And he has much more ownership of it since he did it all himself.

Here is the other side.

We sang apple songs, read apple poems, counted apple seeds, made an apple graph, and had an apple taste test. The taste test was their favorite part!

We had eight different varieties of apples. Christian sorted them by color, and lined them up from biggest to smallest and then smallest to largest.

Then we cut up pieces of each apple for the taste test. Yum!

Like I've mentioned before, usually Ansley and Avery play while Christian and I do school, but today of course everyone joined in. Avery even sensed something fun was going on, and grabbed Bun Bun and joined us at the table. She tried all the varieties, too!

Interesting to note: Mimi and Christian's favorite apple is honeycrisp. Mine and Ansley's favorite apple is sweet tango. Have you ever heard of it? I never had, but picked it up at Kroger, and it is delicious! Ansley and I agree: the perfect, crisp and sweet apple!

Then Mimi joined us (and brought Chick-Fil-A!) and we got to talking about bobbing for apples, so the kids wanted to try it out. We decided we might have to set up a tub and let them bob for apples!

And, of course, monkey see, monkey do, right? She is so silly, and loves when we all laugh at her! Which I find we do quite often.

Yes, she has on three dresses in this photo. She has acquired a bit of a dress obsession!

I had planned on making some apple butter as well, but since I just made pumpkin butter I decided it might be butter overkill.

A fun day learning all about a-a-apples!

Comments

[Kimberly]

You rock!! Perfect delivery timing too! Absolutely delicious!

[Amber]

Love it! We are a huge fan of lapbooks around here, too. And don't I remember that Ansley used to have a dress obsession? Seems like it took her years to wear a pair of jeans??? Ha! Love how our kiddos keep us on our toes. :)

[Megan]

Amber, you have a good memory! But Ansley's dress/no jeans obsession came at a later age than Avery's. It makes me a little nervous that at not even two Avery expresses such strong opinions! :)

[Brandi Magee]

We did an apple week last year at home, and did the taste test and stuff, which was super fun--I should totally do it again this year! Anyway, we decided to "plant" the seeds--which basically means you take the seeds and wrap them in a wet paper towel inside a sandwich bag and stick them in the fridge all winter long. We checked on them every month to see which varieties might be growing. My kids LOVED it! The seeds start to sprout after a month and sprout all winter long, which is really neat. Then in the spring you can transfer them into a pot or into the ground. After much research, I discovered you don't actually get apple trees (with edible apples anyway) from apples seeds--it's a complicated process. But it was a super fun experiment! I think we'll try it again next week...and I may do that lapbook, too. Looks like a lot of fun.