It is very important at the beginning of a new school year to help the children begin the process of making new friends and feeling part of a community of friends…
Of course the process of building friendships and creating a sense of community is an ongoing process but to draw the children’s attention to the idea of community and to promote discussion about friendship, we read aloud the children’s book “Little Mouse and the Big Red Apple” by A.H. Benjamin and Gwyneth Williamson during circletime…
“Little Mouse and the Big Red Apple” is about a little mouse that has found an apple and is rolling it to his home for a feast. Although little mouse really isn’t into sharing his apple, other animals help little mouse out of one situation after another so that he can continue to roll his apple towards home….
The apple book was a good way to invite a brief discussion about friends and how they can help us. Then we took a minute to look at a few real apples and make a simple apple pattern followed by a quick name game where each child took a turn rolling the apple (because the mouse rolled his apple in the book) to another child in the group and as they did, we worked on calling out each other’s name…
During center time, the children found construction paper apple, stem, and leaf shapes at the sticky table. Â The sticky table is simply contact paper taped to a table with the sticky side facing up …
As the children went to the table, they began to take out the pieces and form their own apples on the sticky table…
I use a heavy brand of construction paper for the sticky table so the paper can be stuck onto the table but also peeled back up without tearing. Â A thin construction paper would tear if you tried to peel it back up. Â Tagboard would work well too…
The children came and went through out our morning center time adding apples to the sticky table…
Some children put a more unique spin on the apple building process…
And throughout the morning, I invited each child to pick at least one apple, stem, and leaf to set aside for our friendship apple tree that I will share with you in my next post…
A super simple and fun way to explore the parts of an apple and when the children were done for the morning, I peeled the apples that were still on the sticky paper off and set them aside for another day. I then took the sticky paper off of the table and taped it up in our window for our sticky square collage (which I shared with you the other day). As you can see below, the apples came off quite nicely…
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Links to Grow on
We made apple pies in preschool by Teach Preschool
Lacing up apples in preschool by Teach Preschool
Felt Apple Activity by Kids Activities Blog
Paper Plate Apple by Little Learner’s Lounge
