Saturday Snapshot...Apples, Pumpkins and Fall

A Peek at Quite a Few Weeks...

We began by reading Apple Farmer Annie.

Each day we were studying apples, we tasted an apple food and graphed our results.  We tasted red, green, and yellow apples and graphed our favorite.

For the remainder of apple tasting, students showed their response with a thumbs up or down.  

If you would like to download printable thumbs, you can grab them by clicking on the pic.



We also added an apple poem in our Poetry Journal, circled the letter A, and added a cute torn paper apple.  

The poem and torn apple came from Mrs. Meacham's site.  You can find it here.

We also made individual "apple pies."  I have tried mamy different ways to make apple pies in the classroom, but this is by far my favorite!  I saw the idea online a year or two ago, but I can't remember where.  If you know whose fabulous idea this was, let me know so I can give them credit!

Begin by peeling and coring the apples.

Next, give each student 1/4 of a pie crust.  They make a small pile of apple pieces in the center of their pie crust.

Sprinkle a small spoonful of sugar over the apples and top with a dusting of cinnamon.

Pull up the edges of the pie crust to the center and pinch closed.  Place on parchment paper on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until browned. Cool and enjoy!

While one group was peeling their apples and making their individual apple pies, the rest of the kids were rotating through apple investigation stations.  We used Mrs. Lee's Apple Investigation Sheet.  

We did lots of activities with pumpkins, most of which I didn't get pictures of.  We made our annual trek to the pumpkin farm and did our pumpkin investigations with our pumpkins when we returned. You can find an investigation sheet that we have used the last few years here.

Growing pumpkins in a pumpkin has been my absolutely favorite pumpkin activity EVER!  The idea came from Growing in Pre-K.  It has been absolutely amazing to watch.  Here are a few photos of our experiment in action!

Our first signs of growth, about a week after adding the soil.

About 2-1/2 weeks after adding the soil.

3-1/2 weeks later!

The kids are having a blast watching it grow and recording their observations in their science notebook.  I am even more amazed that it's doing so well in the florescent lighting.  I don't have any windows, and we aren't very good about remembering to put it outside for some natural light on the warmer days.  I'm hoping that we can keep it going indoors throughout the winter months and then plant it outside in the spring!  I'll let you know how it goes!

One last little fall project to share...

Inspired by this pin

By Style Unveiled on Pinterest via Adventures in Kindergarten

It was designed to be a fingerprint tree for wedding guests, but with a bit of twist, it was a perfectly simple fall project.  I printed the tree and then instead of fingerprints, we dipped the eraser end of a pencil in tempra paint and dotted our fall trees.  I love how they turned out!

Pumpkin Investigations

We're headed to the pumpkin farm tomorrow!  At the end of our trip, each student will get to pick out a pumpkin to bring home.


When we return to our classroom we will measure the height, weight, and circumference of our pumpkins using this investigation sheet, some cubes, links, and my tired old bathroom scale.

Click the picture to grab a copy from Google docs.

This week we are also going to continue our pumpkin investigations by reading 

We will be opening up a pumpkin, labeling the parts, and counting seeds.  Then, it's into the giant plastic barrel (sealed with an excessive amount of duck tape) to watch Jack decompose.  The kids will observe Jack's changes and record their observations weekly.

I'll be back later in the week with more pictures (and printables) from our adventures this week.

I love fall!

Muffins with Moms and Donuts with Dads

I know lots of classrooms do Muffins with Moms around Mother's Day, but I have decided to make it a monthly event in our classroom.  The first Friday of every month we will alternate between Muffins with Moms and Donuts with Dads.  


Today was our first Muffins with Moms, and I was amazed by the turn out!  We had 15 moms join us, which is an amazing turn out (almost twice as many as Open House)!


On Thursday we made pumpkin muffins to serve our moms!  We also made simple invitations by folding a piece of construction paper in half.  Students filled in the information on the invitation, addressed and signed it and glued it inside.  They colored their muffin and glued that half of their page on the outside.  Simple, but cute!



Our community liaison and kindergarten ESL teacher joined us to assist with translation.  After the kids served muffins and juice to their moms, they selected a favorite book for their mom to read to them.  We read the big book, It's Pumpkin Time!

 and the students sequenced how a pumpkin grows

(found here) with their moms!  
It was a great ending to our week!