September Homeschooling...Apples, Apples, Apples

September was our first month of homeschooling... a month of learning for us all. Learning new things, in new ways with new people. I am amazed at how many homeschoolers there are nearby and and am thankful we have met so many wonderful families!

Here is a longgg recap of our first month as we jumped head first into our apple unit study (my theme based ECE training is easy to fall back upon as we all explore learning at home...it gives us a starting place and as time goes on I am sure our teaching strategies will change as we adapt our methods to suite each individual need of our children).

We start the mornings off with journal time and then do an activity (science, math, language) and or a craft. I have been doing journal entries as well to encourage the girls (I won't bore you with all my own pics I promise).

We started out the month learning about the parts of an apple.

 

 We learned there was a star inside the apple through the story about a small red house with no windows or doors and discovered the physical surprise of a star inside. Sierra was amazed! After reading the story she predicted that we would NOT find a star so when she cut it open she was completely amazed. We had to cut through a few apples so she could make sure it would reoccur over and over and was not just a fluke.

We made arm printed apple trees.

 We described apples...how they look, feel, taste and made a list of things made from apples.

We have learned about apples through poetry.

 We've learned about the lifecycle of apples from seed, to sprout, to tree, to bud, to blossom, to apple and around to a seed again.

 We've played math games... Sierra did some as well but an older version then these I just missed the pics :(

printable HERE

This printable I had saved...it is not mine and I am not sure where it came from as there is no copyright notice on it.

 

Both girls LOVED sorting skittles by colour, stacking them in their baskets and then counting them...before eating them of course! As you can tell they didn`t last long. As soon as the counting was done... the skittles disappeared! I made this activity page and then realized after we opened up the skittles there are actually five colours in the bag and the purples looked more like brown. If you`d like a copy feel free to email me and I can send you a copy with the five colours.

 We measured, mixed, stirred, poured, molded and took turns to make apple rice krispie treats.

Treats for our neighbours

We made apple pancakes another day but they ended up looking more like pumpkins!

 Our favouite activities went along with the book Ten Apples up on Top by Theo LeSeig. I couldn`t find my copy of the book so we watched THIS VIDEO online.

After listening to the story we piled as many apples as we could on our characters from the story. The character colouring pages came from HERE. I just cut them off and used only the upper bodies.

 We learned what makes up 10... free 7 page printable came from HERE.

Aayla made a 10 Apples Up on Top book. This printable book (and many other ideas for this book) came from HERE.

The girls tried balancing apples on their heads.

Sierra managed to balance two apples Up on Top

Then we tried other ways of balancing...and added in some bean bags.

We played an apple toss game by drawing an appletree on the ground with five circle on it. The object of the game was to try and toss all five bean bags into a circle.

 

 We also read the book The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall. We made cinnimon apple playdough. We shaped the dough into apples, then cut them, and made them into mini pies.

 

And last but not least we went for a walk and found a wild apple tree. We were supposed to go to an orchard but we ran out of time this month :(

 There were not the prettiest apples and most were spotted but they were perfect for applesauce!

Washing the apples

Aayla placing the apple on the peeler

Peeling her apple all by herself

Sierra thought this peeling-coring process was so cool

Sierra chopping the apples before putting them in the pot

She discovered breaking the coils was faster then cutting them

Into the pot with cinnamon and honey. My little helpers were kind of heavy on the cinnamon!

Mmmm homemade applesauce

 Soooo as you can see we have had a very busy first month of homeschooling...and October is looking even busier!