A is for...

My husband is really good at fixing large manly type of things, like a motor or a bathroom.  What he isn't so good at is fixing delicate things, like Mister's glasses (hello warranty) and my camera.  Two things you  never want from your camera is a flash and a boom and those two things I have heard.  The good news is that I have a few things I haven't posted from last month, but I have a really cool sensory bin that I am itching to get to.  In the meantime, here are some of the Wee One's letter "a" activities.

Math - Scented apple stickers on dots to work on one-to-one correspondence.

Literacy - Letter A recognition and beginning sounds Letter Book

Apple stamping - she chose to use make yellow apples

Stickers - fine motor

Finally, we did a lot of dancing to Animal Actions.

We All Fall - Word Family

I know everyone has certain book your kid(s) insist you read over and over and over...until they remind you when you accidentally skip a page (and by accidentally I mean let's get this book over).  Our latest book like that is We All Fall for Apples.  Since they love this book, even the Wee One has it memorized, I took the word family -all and made an activity.

I cut out a tree and some fall leaves to put on the tree.  In the middle of the tree I wrote -all and asked them to think of words that had -all in them.  When they found one, I wrote it and they glued it on.  When it was finished, I put the tree on our wall for reference.

Then, on the shelf was the materials to make their own tree. 

Ladybug is writing her -all words.

I hung up their trees for our -all family wall.

Other Than The Kids

I have interests outside of my children.  No really I do.  My husband and I like to remodel, but like most things it never fully gets finished.  There is still a piece of tile that needs to be grouted in the kid bath and that was finished 3 years ago.  It's those little things that we will do tomorrow, but I can say that this project is finished.  Really finished.

Before

After

As Ladybug would say, "Are you proud of yourself mommy?"  Yes, yes I am.

Love Birds - Canvas

I feel like I am a crafty DIY person, but I am a lot better in my head.  Ask my family and they will tell you that I think I can build furniture, paint pictures, landscape, and make clothes.  Then ask them what I really can do.  Vastly different.  My lofty ideas usually take more effort and more money to create than paying somebody else to do it for me.  So, when this only took me two tries I had to share it.

It's a 10x10 canvas from Michaels and since they never have coupons (like Kohl's never has a sale), it was around $7.00.  I painted the canvas using leftover paint from the walls and I first attempted to cover it with pretty paper.  Modpodge and I battled a few times and clearly I wasn't the winner.  The "love" is from the Cricut on 4".  The birds are hand cut from clip art on white paper with a hint of a pattern.  The branch is drawn and hand cut from the webs.  Finally the leaves were cut from silver paper to add some shine.

Down Came an Apple

Yesterday, I wrote about the apple subtraction rhyme we have been singing and now the activity.

We started off my sitting on the rug and each person had a chance to shake some apples off the tree.  We talked about how many apples we had, how many fell off, and how many were left.  I like to think of it as a verbal word problem and for many kids word problems are a big thumbs down.

On the shelf was the same kind of activity, but in written as a word problem.

___ red apples handing in the tree
Looking red and delicious as can be!
I shook that tree as hard as I could
Down came ____ apple(s)
Mmm it was good.

How many apples are left in the tree?

Ladybug adding the apples to her tree.

Ladybug giving the apple tree a shake.

This is a self-checking activity with the correct answer on the back.  I hope it was a stress free introduction to word problems.  Happy apple shaking and subtracting.

Apple Investigation

I can't believe this month is almost finished and I feel like we have so much to do!  Tomorrow is the last day of summer and it's time for all things fall.  Like every year, we will be going to the apple orchard to pick apples for apple butter, apple pies, apple eating, and what ever else we can make.  As a preview to our annual apple picking I read the book Life On An Apple Orchard.  It's pretty long, so I picked out the most important and interesting parts on each page.  

After we read, we did some movement with 5 Little Apples, but I changed to the words in preparation for a subtraction activity.  

Five red apples hanging in the tree (Hold up 5 fingers)

Red and delicious as can be (Rub tummy)

(Name) shook that tree as hard as she/he could (Shake the tree)

Down came one apple (Apple falling)

Mmm it was good (Take a bite)

They were ready to refocus and sit after our song, so we cut open an apple for investigating.  As they looked at the apple, we talked about each part and made chart as reference for their work.  

I didn't plan on including the core, but Ladybug noticed that the middle of the apple looked different from the rest of the apple.

Parts of an Apple was available on the shelf along with the cut apple and magnifying glass.

Being a good scientist - It's hard not to just take a lick.

I realize that this activity isn't original, but it's fun and easy to expand on the original idea.

Acorn Transfer

Easy, peasy activity and if I was really on it I would have picked up acorns outside.  The Wee One really liked these sparkly acorns, so here they are.

The Wee One used wooden salad tongs to transfer the acorns from apple dish to apple dish.