Letter A and Number 1

We started school in January at my house. I decided to plan out "school" activities for Josh and Caleb to do during the week. I started with the Letter A and the Number 1 because, well, I just like to start at the beginning. So here are some things I did with them for those of you who are interested in finding new ideas for things to do with your preschoolers.

I found most every idea online at one website or another. I will try to link to them directly for each activity I mention.

First of all, I am always open to learning opportunities with the kids so just because I designate a letter and number for the week does not mean that is the only thing we talk about.

That said, we did talk a lot about apples that week. There are just so many fun things to do with an apple theme.

We shopped for apples at the grocery store that Monday and purchased 1 each of Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious and Honey Crisp. I used the 4 different apples as kind of a science lesson. We sat at the table and discussed how the apples look different and came up with a hypothesis: The apples look different and taste different. So then we tested the hypothesis by trying a bite of each apple. After trying each one we wrote down a description of the apple; soft, hard, sweet, etc.... They did all taste different. We all picked our favorite out of the 4. I cut one of the apples in half horizontally so that they could see the star pattern in the middle. We talked about the different parts of an apple; skin, fruit, core, seeds and stem. It was fun to see them experience and learn new things and to see them having fun doing it.

One day we painted with apples cut in half. Some vertically and some horizontally.


Here are the finished apple paintings. I made these picture frames a couple of years ago, to hold their artwork. Maybe I will post later about how I made them.

One day we made Apple Butter. They really enjoy helping me in the kitchen. The Apple Butter turned out pretty good. Here is where I found the recipe we used. Alphabetsoup.net They have a lot of themes to choose from and I have found this to be one of my favorite sites.

We read every day but I found a few books that I pulled out ecspecially for the week. Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg and The Ant and the Grasshopper (An Aesops Fable). We sang Way Up In the Apple Tree and a few other songs I picked out from the Alphabet Soup website.

I want them to start learning to write the alphabet as well as recognize the letters and know the sounds they make. So I have been using the tracer pages at dltk-teach.com . You can make your own or use the ones they have. They have letters and numbers. It's pretty cool. So of course we did the letter A and the number 1 during A week.

Thats all for that week. We are now on Letter C and Number 3. We have had a Letter B and Number 2 week and a Letter A and B review week. So far it has been really fun to think out and plan activities to do with my boys.