Apples, Apples, Apples...

It's the third day for our apple week and the excitement is still as fresh as the first day! I have chosen the book "Up,up,up...It's Apple picking time!" by Jody Shapiro for today's read. As usual, we started the session reading the book, and halfway into it my little girl wanted to close it and kept asking me for playdough. As I have mentioned in the previous post, she has been playing with our homemade playdough for weeks now, so she asks for it right when she wakes up.

I didn't want to give in right away, so I suggested we count our little apples first. One by one, we put them in a silicone cupcake liner. I also took the time to identify the upper and lower case Aa with her.

After a few minutes, I felt like she was getting bored. So we moved over to tracing the Aa worksheet with playdough. She was getting excited when she saw me taking the playdough out of the container, she instantly asked for her toy rolling pin and her plastic knife!

I let her play with it for awhile, while I was busy making an Aa for the worksheet. After I did, I showed it to her and we did the same thing again, hand over hand.

Later, she insisted she do her own thing...which is the usual! While she was busy, I took the opportunity to read the book again. It doesn't matter if she isn't focused, I know her ears are open.

Few minutes into it, she wanted to stand up and started asking me, "Where iPad, Mama?" I took it as a sign that she was already done with the activity. So I showed her some brushes and paint, and she exclaimed..."baby, paint!" There's something about paint and brushes that gets her excited. So I let her put on her smock and gave her a brush.

I set out this paper on the wall so we can paint an apple orchard. We both painted the trees {hand over hand} and Lia would paint the apples by herself. While I was doing it, she was getting impatient, continuously telling me it's her turn to do it by herself!

Busy little artist at work!

And then, I dipped some cotton balls in red paint, using a plastic tong. Lia would stamp them on the trees to create apples.

Then she realized that tongs were making life more difficult, so...

We also added blue skies to make it look perfect!

Then our Apple Orchard has come to life!

The last activity was to cut out some apples. Lia has never used the knife considering her age, but I decided to give it a try using a butter knife. It wasn't sharp and I was supervising her, so she was safe. She loved the idea that she could actually use a real knife to cut an apple...

And the best part, was eating it!

Truly a productive third day! Two more apple days and we're all set for the first week! 

At the time of this writing, we are already in the fourth week of our Tot School.