Fall Apple Project

I finally decided to actually put my 5 years of college to good use with my own children. I have an Early Childhood degree, worked as a 4K teacher for 5 years, and I havent even used any of it to teach my girls. Call me lazy.......I know I am! There is NO EXCUSE! But now I have turned over a new leaf (pun intended) and decided it is time to teach my children the way I taught all those kids in my class. I mean Kaylee knows her animals (and sounds), colors, shapes, body parts, she can find her name (sometimes has trouble when other words start with K), she is pretty solid with number recognition, but she doesnt know the letters of the alphabet, she CANT write her name (which I learned today that many of her friends in her class can!), I dont think she can even SPELL her name, and she cant write numbers. This makes me sad, I dont feel like she needs to be the best in her class, but I certainly dont want her to be the last, or struggle to keep up with the other children. I have made a deal with myself to try and squeeze in as much "teaching" as possible. We are going to start with her name. Hopefully next week. I have games/ activities planned, and hopefully she will enjoy the learning. My only problem with her is her attention span. She is so busy! Maybe I can wrangle her in and get her interested in learning. That's the plan at least!

Monday, I decided to do an apple lesson with the girls. I have done this activity with my 4 year olds MANY times, so I tweaked it a bit and we had an entire lesson geared for them. We made the paint, talked about apples, and their colors, we tried to teach Ainslee the colors (she knows yellow and red now), then we cut the apple to find the "surprise" inside........a STAR! Both the girls were very excited when they saw it. Then we painted away, actually we ate first, then painted, I mean who wants to eat apples after they have paint all over their fingers?

Here is Ainslee eating her apple

(naked from the waist up, much easier to clean that way)

Kaylee eating hers

(yes she is still in her PJ's)

the apple seeds

When I asked Kaylee what would happen if we planted the apple seeds, she said "it would grow TOMATOES!" I chuckled, and asked her again, and she said "it would go apples" (in a not so enthusiastic voice). What can I say the girl LOVES tomatoes!

we used non-organic apples for this project, so we had to peel them before eating them. The skin is SO tough when they are not organic! But who wants to waste good expensive apples on a paint project? We will save those to be eaten!

The supplies: 3 colors of homemade paint, 3 apple halves (not sure why the 3rd missed out on the picture), 3 forks to hold the apples, plates, and paper.

Kaylee's finished product

Ainslee's finished product

We finger painted on the orange piece of paper. Ainslee does NOT like getting her fingers in the paint........can you tell?

Overall the lesson went really well! Both girls stayed interested and focused the entire time. The only problem was this was the first time I had made my own paint, and I made it a bit too runny, so the stars barely showed up. Besides that it was fantastic, and so much fun!

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Yesterday I did another project with Kaylee (while Ainslee napped). We searched the yard for fallen leaves and then we did a leaf rubbing. After we rubbed the leaves, I mixed them up and had Kaylee match them to the correct leaf. She loved this activity too. We also finished painting our bird house, which now needs to be hung outside. Fall is such a GREAT time of year! I love how the weather is finally starting to cool down, fall is one of my favorite seasons!