Fall Fun for All!

Happy Saturday Everyone! It's been a long, long, long time since the last time that I blogged.  I have a lot to share with you all, so here it goes...

Apples, pumpkins, and Fall have been on my mind a whole lot! If you're a teacher you will understand where I'm coming from.  I've spent endless hours trying to incorporate my thematic units with the common core standards and of course FUN! First up is apples...

We read many non fiction and fiction books about apples.  In fact we learned what fiction and non fiction means.  One of the books we read talked about the parts of an apple so we practiced labeling the different parts whole group and in an art project. During this time we practiced patterns by making an apple pattern hat.  

We learned about our five senses by practicing labeling the chart above and sorting the pictures below.  I found this sort on a cool blog called Kindergarten Kindergarten.

We used our five sense to explore apples by doing a taste test and making applesauce.  Afterwards, we graphed which kind of apple they liked the best.  The apple comparison worksheet that is picture above was found on the blog Kindergarten Hoppenings.

After our apple investigation activities I had the class brainstorm ideas to fill out the apples are and have anchor chart.   They used this chart to write about  apples (I forgot to take a pic).

Take a look at this easy craft that turned out super cute! I found the idea for these paper plate apples on the blog Paging Supermom.  I decided to have the kids pick their favorite kind of apple and paint it accordingly. 

Check out these apple videos I found on YouTube.

Next, up is pumpkins! The kinders got to take turns helping take out the seeds and pulp of the pumpkin.  They each predicted how many seeds they though were in the pumpkin.  We grouped them by 10's to make counting a little easier :).  Afterwards, an amazing parent volunteer carved the pumpkin for us to enjoy.  

We also learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin.  They drew the life cycle and labeled it in their journal (I forgot to take a pic). 

We used adjectives to describe the inside and outside of the pumpkin.

Here is a cool video about how the Libby pumpkins are grown.

We also learned about fall.  After reading many books we filled in this anchor chart on what happens in the fall. 

The kinders sponge painted these leaves as their culminating fall activity. 

Fall in Kindergarten

This last month was filled with all things Fall.  We had so much fun learning about apples, pumpkins, seasons, and ofcourse Halloween.  

Here is a picture of my Fall bulletin board.  My kinders painted the pumpkins and leaves to go around the tree.  

We started out our Fall unit with a poem called A Fall of Colors.  

We sponge painted leaves in red, yellow, and brown to put on our Fall board.  

We kicked off our apple unit by estimating how many apples were in the jar.  I recorded their guesses and added them to the chart.  After all guesses were added to the chart we put them in order front least to greatest using the number line as our guide.  Putting a number line at the bottom of the chart was a genius idea I got from the Kindergals blog.  I told the kids that they could guess a number between 1 and 17, doing this eliminates guesses that are too high.  

Another fun part of learning about apples is tasting them! I had each child in my class bring in two apples of their choice.  After we read books about the different types of apples we did a taste test.  We tasted Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, and Granny Smith apples and recored our results on the paper pictured above.  This comparing apples worksheet was found at Kinder Hoppenings blog.  

After tasting the three different kinds of apples we used a picture graph to figure out what kind of apple  the class like best.  

We learned about the different parts of an apple with this cute art project.  I found the apple vocabulary words on the blog Eberhart's Explorers.  

I love to have the kids taste different foods made from apples.  This year we tried carmel apples, apple juice, and homemade applesauce. My class has been learning about patterns so I was happy to find a apple pattern worksheet at Kinder Hoppenings.  They also made apple pattern hats (sorry no pic), and practiced weighing apples to see which was heavier or lighter.  

We learned about how an apple tree changes during each season.  I found this adorable art project from the blog Eberhart's Explorers it shows the seasons of an apple tree using handprints. The poem that you can barely see in the picture above can also be found on this blog.  

Miss H.