First Day of Fall

Read the book, "We're Going on a Leaf Hunt" by Steve Metzger.

Take a nature walk/leaf hunt around your yard, neighborhood or park. Take a bag or bucket along to collect leaves, twigs and nuts you'll find on your walk. Point out the changes in color in the leaves, grass and flowers. Discuss how it's getting cooler in the night and morning and how that helps the leaves change color. When you return from your walk lay out your findings and make a collage.

You could also do the following activity with the leaves you found on the nature walk:

Press a variety of large fall leaves between pages of a book until they lie flat. Then choose two or three pressed leaves and place them on a protected tabletop. Brush fall-colored tempera paint over the leaves. If desired, add several streaks of gold metallic tempera paint. Then place a sheet of construction paper over the leaves and smooth your hands over the paper. Flip the paper over and remove the leaves to see a lovely piece of autumn artwork!

As always, you can simply place a leaf or two under a piece of paper and let your child rub an unwrapped crayon over the paper. Talk about the different types of leaves - colors, shapes and sizes. (use words like big, bigger, biggest...)

Here's the link to a few "extras" and also another neat idea from a magazine article with illustrations. Happy fall y'all! (FYI, the first official day of fall is September 22.)

Document 4

Document 5


Fall Magazine Article Activity

Leaf Man

Ten Apples Up on Top

Begin by reading the Dr. Seuss classic book, Ten Apples Up on Top. (I realize the title needs to be underlined, too bad blooger doesn't have that option in text editing!) While you're reading, talk about who has more apples on each page. Discuss the concepts of more and less, most and least.

After reading the book, sit with your child at a table with the following activity:

Have pictures of family memebers or cutouts from magazines, whatever is on hand, along with at least 10 apple shapes. You can use the apple shape here and minimize or maximize it to fit your picture. You may choose to copy and paste mulitple apples on a page in a word processor. Print, color and cut the apples yourself before beginning the activity with your child. I also laminated the apples since we'll be using them for other activities and for years to come.



Let your child explore putting a different amount of apples on each person's head, then count them together and talk about who has more apples and who has the least. We also started counting to ten in Spanish with this lesson.

Craft/Math:
Supplies:
red, green and yellow tempera paint
3 Q-tips
medicine cups, or some sort of small cup or bowl
crayons
provided reproducable (Sorry, it's a little crooked!)

Ten Apples Upon Top


Allow your child to color the drawing to resemble himself. Fill each medicine cup with red, green or yellow paint. Allow your child to create a pattern with the different colors by painting apples on top of their head. You may need to review the colors before each color is added. Also, keep a count of how many apples are up on top after each addition. Make sure your child has 10 apples up on top!

Let your child try doing another sheet without using a pattern. Just like we saw in the book, the apples don't have to line up perfectly. Numbers can be represented in any order or sequence.

Repeat songs and rhymes from previous apple lesson.

Apples in Every Sense

Septemeber is apple month!! Visit an apple orchard to smell, taste, touch and pick the apples. Let your child use her five senses to discover more about apples...
Touch: Pick out a green, yellow and red apple. Wash and cut each apple in half. Pick out the seeds and set aside. Use one half of each apple to dip each into either red, green or yellow paint and stamp on a large piece of construction paper. You may need to brush on the paint.
Taste: Slice the other apple halves and have a taste test. Let your preschooler decide which apple she likes best. Then, use a simple form to record her favorite. She may choose to stamp the color of the apple she liked best. Make applesauce or some other type of apple treat together. Time in the kitchen is quality time that teaches following directions and develops science and math skills.
Hear: Listen to the crunch of the apple when you take a bite!
Smell: Visit an apple orchard to smell, taste, touch and see the apples. Make applesauce with any leftover apples from the previous activities. Just peel, slice and core the apples and cook with a bit of water (just enough to keep from scorching) until the apples are tender. Blend cooked apples and let your preschooler stir in cinnamon. Let cool and enjoy! You can even make a syrup from the apple peels to enjoy for breakfast.
Sight: Examine the different colors of apples. Find an apple tree and discuss how it grows and produces apples.

Read books about Johnny Appleseed. If you don't have any search the catalog at the library and place a hold on any books to pick up later.

To work on fine motor skills for older preschoolers, sterilize a pair of tweezers and let the child work on moving the apple seeds from one container to another.
Draw an upper and lower case letter "Aa" with school glue (letting your child hold the bottle, just guide and squeeze along with her) then let her place the apple seeds onto the glue.

Bible Story:
The creation story of Adam and Eve is a perfect story for this unit. It involves an apple and how God created good foods for us to eat. Also, discuss the letter Aa throughout this story using the words "apple and "Adam". It's a good story for the whole month as we learned about how special God makes each of us in the "God Made Me" part of the unit. I will post on that lesson later. For preschoolers, focus on how God wants us to follow his directions and use the bible to read the story. Explain how God gave us His word, the Bible, to know right from wrong.
Bible Truths for Preschoolers:
God Gives us Rules
God's Words are True
God Made Me
God Gives Us Good Food to Eat

Sing songs about apples:

Have You Ever Seen an Apple?
(Sung to the tune of "Have You Ever Seen a Lassie?")
Have you ever seen an apple, an apple, an apple?
Have you ever see an apple so juicy and red?
In one bite, I munch it. I crunch it so loud.
Have you ever seen an apple, an apple so red?

Rolling Apples
(Sung to the tune of "Frere Jacques")
Rolling apples, rolling apples,
Down the hill, down the hill.
Dropping off the tree
And rolling down the hill,
Roll away, roll away.

Rhymes about apples:

Five Little Apples
Five little apples, no less, no more
One was picked and then there were four.

Four little apples, hanging on the tree
One dropped off and then there were three.

Three little apples, shiny and new
One rolled down and then there were two.

Two little apples, ripening in the sun
One was plucked and then there was one.

One little apple sitting alone
It got picked and then there were non.

Way Up High
(Action Rhyme, use movements with words)
Way up high in an apple tree,
Two little apples smiled at me.
I shook that tree as hard as I could,
And down came the apples,
Mmmm...they were good!
Five Little Apples

Make file folder games to match patterned apples. Resource website coming soon...