Pre-K Apple Activities

While we are slowly working our way through some purchased curriculum this year, I couldn't resist doing some fun themed activities. We have so many fun resources, I decided to split the fall theme into Apples, Leaves/Fall and Pumpkins. Here are the apple activities we did.

Books! We always read tons of books, so having a theme is no different. Because the picture is a bit small, I put out Ana cultiva manzanas, Ten Red Apples, Clifford Picking Apples and Pumpkins, Apples and Pumpkins, I am an Apple, and How to Make Apple Pie and See the World. I also had out Meet the Sight Words The Apples and a fall sight reader Going to the Apple Orchard.

Apple Tree Roll and Cover activity. This year I got out the version where you add two dice together.

Playing My First Orchard and saving the fruit from the raven.

This Apple Pie Counting Stew from Pocket of Preschool was a big hit. He enjoyed following all of the recipes and then we added up the number of ingredients at the end of each one.

I printed these One Less/One More sheets from somewhere on the internet and cannot find it again. 😬 They wouldn't be hard to make yourself. I set them up with some number tiles and apple table scatter.

Apple money practice page from 1plus1plus1equals1. He still mixes up nickels and quarters, but other than that does well.

Before and after worksheet from  1plus1plus1equals1.

Greater than or less than gluing activity, also from 1plus1plus1equals1. I had never shown him the symbols, but he did great!

Apple Lifecycle Activity from Montessori for Everyone

Apple Cuisenaire Template

Apple Maze from Busy Bee Kids Printables. This one was probably too easy. Next time I'll print a harder one.

Riding behind the tractor at the apple orchard!

 

Fall Pumpkin Number Matching

 

Fall is in the air! Since my little guy loves math activities, I made him a pumpkin themed number matching activity. There are trucks numbered 1-20 and corresponding pumpkins with tens frames, dice, tallies and a written number. You could present them all at once or in groups to make them more manageable.

Print the Fall Pumpkin Number Matching Activity HERE

Pumpkin Seed Sight Word Fine Motor Activity

 

September is well under way and I am getting to excited for fall! I made this fun pumpkin seed sight word activity to give my little guy another fall related hands on activity. He has been able to read all of his sight words for a long time, but I we're just starting to work on spelling words and I think the linking aspect adds fun fine motor practice!

I printed all the cards and laminated them (I've had my laminator for over 10 years and it is still going strong!). Then I used a hole punch to make room for the learning links. I have a "low force" hold punch and have found that if I take the bottom punch catcher off, I can see where I'm punching pretty easily.

To keep him from being overwhelmed, I only presented some of the words at a time.

He thought it was like hooking up train cars, so he loved it and insisted on finishing every word.

Print your Pumpkin Seed Sight Word Activity Here

Some other fall resources:

Printable Squirrel Directions and Beginning Coding Game

 

My little guy LOVES the GPS and has begun asking me what direction we are going while driving in the car. He does pretty well with right and left and wants so badly to understand North, South, East and West. Since he has also shown a big interest in maps lately, I made this little squirrel game to help with directions. I chose woodland animals because fall is coming up and that should fit into our fall activities!

The game is simple, there are little printable animals, some obstacles, some treats and a playing grid. I made two compass roses, one with Right, Left, Forward, Backward and one with North, South, East and West, so we could work on either set of skills. I also made some little arrow cards, to do it without the words.

I place the squirrel somewhere on the outside of the grid and place an animal friend for him to go visit somewhere else. Then he has to give me directions to get the squirrel to his friend (or I could give him directions). The stump or pile of leaves can block the path and the pumpkin or apple can be treats to collect along the way.

To turn it into coding practice (probably when he gets a little older), I would have him use the arrows to put together all the directions and then we would follow them all out. You could have older kids write down all the directions (either with arrows or words) and then follow them to see if it works.

To make it more fun, and because I had them, I added our little squirrel and bear figurines as well as some acrylic leaves, apple and pumpkin (vase scatter).

Print the Squirrel Practicing Directions Game Here

Fall Dot to Dot Pages

 

My little one does not care for coloring, painting or being crafty. He does, however, really like doing dot to dot pages. In order to have more Thanksgiving activities for him, I made some Fall Themed dot to dot pages. Since he likes both, each page has a numbers and an alphabet version.

Print the Fall Dot to Dot Pages Here

Apple Tree Roll and Cover

 

Fall weather has definitely arrived to our hometown! That means I've started thinking of fall preschool activities to do with Archer. One thing I decided to make was this Apple Tree Roll and Cover. There are a variety of ways you could use them, depending on your child's level.

Three Trees:

• Numbers 1-6
• Numbers 3-12 (for adding two dice)
• Colors

Four Printable Dice:

• Dots
• Number words
• Colors
• Color words

I used acrylic apples (vase scatter), but you could use candy, beans, coins, buttons, erasers, etc.

Print the Apple Tree Roll and Cover Here

Fall Tot School Activities

Hooray for fall! Since my brother was in town visiting, we spent the last two weeks on fall activities.  It let us take a very relaxed pace without worrying about fitting things into one week.

His little shelf had several fall books. Some he was interested in, others he wasn't. I figure they'll get more use next year. Right now, he still prefers books with photographs.

He spent some more time working on his Fall Sight Words. He seems to like it when I set out 6-8 of them and have him find certain words.  If I do too many, he has trouble finding things and gets frustrated.

Fall play dough. I used some fall cookie cutters, some acrylic leaves, apples and pumpkins (vase fill) and a few tools.

For a couple of weeks I showed Archer the fall words lesson on Little Reader (aff link), after we did our regular curriculum. I had these 3 part cards I made for Xander, to go with the lesson, so I figured I'd get them out and see what happened (Xander was a bit older when I did LR lessons and 3 Part Cards with him).  Archer got almost all of them correct and he really enjoyed it! He struggled a bit with the pocket chart, so next time we'll do it on the ground or a desk. I guess I'll have to start making more word lessons/cards for him!

Fall sensory bin with popcorn kernels.  I threw in some more apples, leaves and pumpkins, plus some little metal containers.  After a while, we threw in his rainbow wheel as well. He got such a kick out of picking up the kernels and then watching them flow out of his fingers!

We really haven't done too much sorting yet, so I wasn't sure how this would go.  I got him a little container of leaves and apples, with a little card that had them both marked.  He did pretty well with sorting, until he got too excited and tried to put them all on at once. I love seeing my little guy focus so intently on things that interest him!

I found this cute little pumpkin shape printable from Totschooling. It was one of Archer's favorite activities, and he wanted to do it several times.

We did lots of playing toys.  Here are a couple of pics I snapped.

Kaysha @ Memorizing the MomentsFallFollow On