A is for Apples!

A is for Apples!

Today, A is for Apples!

We started by reading the book The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons. This book was pretty good. It went through the 4 seasons and talked about how an apple tree grows. It also talked about what you could do with the tree (such as build a swing and a tree house) It also talked about making apple cider and apple pie. Very educational but still engaging.

After the story, we did our letter craft. We got the letter craft from Totally Tots. This is a little "a" turned into an apple. After the letter craft we worked on writing our letter A. After our writing practice, we moved on to our activity.

 

Apple Math! Got this idea from Mamas Like Me. I LOVE this idea. I made 5 trees. On one side they are numbered 1-5 and the other side 6-10. I placed the trees on a piece of white paper. First we worked on the 1-5 side or the addition side. We lined up the trees then Little Bear placed the apples (beads) on the tree. (Tree 1 gets 1 apple, tree 2 gets 2, etc) Then she rolled a dice and had to add that many apples to the tree. Then I asked her how many apples she had all together. Great concept to beginning addition!

When we finished the first 5 trees, we flipped them over and worked on the subtraction side or trees 6-10. Again Little Bear placed the amount of apples on the tree. This time however, when she rolled the dice we took that amount of apples off the tree. Then I would ask her how many apples were left on the tree. Can not stress how much I love this idea! It was fun and easy for her to use. We plan to use this more then just during A week. I also think I might do what the website said and show her the math problem on a white board as well. I think I might actually glue the trees to the paper and have a front and back side to the paper. That way they do not move as much. We added this activity to our activity basket. Learn about our activity box here.