Apples, Apples and MORE Apples!

Red apples,

Green apples,

Yellow apples too.

I like sweet apples, how about you?

This is just one of the many songs and poems the children have been learning.  We enjoyed changing this poem according to the different tastes and textures of apples we each like.  We used different vocabulary words to describe the way an apple can taste, such as sweet, tart, sour, crunchy, and juicy!  Along with this poem, the children were introduced to the pocket chart center and practiced reading and reciting the poem during choice time.  They practice pointing to the words as they read.  Poems in our pocket chart help children develop concepts of print and strengthen vocabulary, among other early literacy skills.

We also welcomed our new month of OCTOBER!  It has brought a new level of excitement to the classroom.  While apples are still a topic of conversation among the classroom, pumpkins, changing leaves and HALLOWEEN have joined the mix.  Fall is the best!

A few highlights...

First of all, a peek from LAST week at our apple orchard trip!  The children had a blast on their first field trip!

When they arrived they got to go on a hayride through the orchard!  The children all said their favorite part was all of the "spooky" stuff hidden in the woods.

Next, they got to learn all about how apples grow, the different kinds of apples and how to pick an apple.

Lastly, they enjoyed a tasty apple snack and learned all about the machine that sorts the apples by small, medium and large.

What a fun trip!

Last week they also created our second class made book based off the book 10 Apples Up On Top By Dr. Seuss!  The children each counted how many letters are in their name and wrote each letter in an apple.  They glued the apples to make it look like they ware balancing on their head, just like in the book!  Another favorite class made book to add to our collection.

This week we completed our apple taste test!  We tasted four different types of apples which included: Honeycrisp, Sweet Tango, Chestnut Crab and Sweet 16.  Before tasting the apples, we compared and contrasted the differences by looking at the size, shape and color.

Ready to eat apples...

We tasted each apple and discussed what we noticed.  The children used many words to describe the way the apples tasted!  They also noticed that even though they were all apples, each one tasted unique and different.

 

Yay for apple tasting!

Once they finished tasting each apple, the children got to pick their favorite apple and mark it on our class graph.

The overall class favorite was...

HONEYCRISP!  The children thought it was sweet, sour and crunchy.  The perfect apple!

The children have loved re-telling the apple orchard story since their trip.  We gather as a group and verbally practice telling the story with a beginning, middle and end.  Verbally re-telling stories helps children gain understanding of story sequence and builds their narrative skills.  Oral language is the foundation for reading and writing...their first "writing voice" is speech!  We will enjoy "talk time" as a group many times this year after important or memorable events.

We ended our short week by starting to tell our apple orchard story on paper.  As a group, we practiced the process of creating a story which includes brainstorming and verbalizing thoughts, planning them out in a sequential manner and putting them on paper with illustration and words.  We counted the amount of pages we needed for each important event in our story and started the collaboration of adding the pictures and words.  The children want to title the story Our Field Trip to the Apple Orchard.  We will finish it next week!

 

October brings more excitement, discovery and adventure in preschool!

Specialists Next Week (The children officially start Chinese next week)

10/8-Day 4
*Morning music and afternoon religion
10/9-Day 5
*Morning P.E.
10/10-Day 6
*Morning Chinese and Art
10/11-Day 1
*Morning P.E. and afternoon Library
10/12-Day 2
*Morning Music and afternoon Chinese

Dates to Remember:

Thursday, October 4th and Friday, October 5th- Conferences- No School

Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th- Faculty Workshop- No School

Monday, October 22nd- Field Trip to Apple Jack Pumpkin Patch

Friday, October 26th- The Richfield Readers Visit Preschool

Wednesday, October 31st- Halloween Parade and Class Party (more info to come)

GO MUSTANGS!

We had fun celebrating blue and gold day today in honor of Breck Homecoming!  

We also got to see the Homecoming Court this afternoon!  They taught us a new "cheer" that had us spell MUSTANGS!  GO BRECK!

Weekly highlights...

We continue to look for letters and sounds in our names.  The children added their names to our letter wall by finding the letter their name begins with.  They love looking at our letter wall and reading each other's names.  They often stop to make connections about letters they have similar or different from each other.

One-to-one correspondence and number identification with apple counting!  The children practiced accurately counting each number by placing apples in the apple trees.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate for our first field trip to the apple orchard, but that didn't stop us from investigating apples!

(Our apple inquiry has transferred over to the art table where the children have been busy creating apples and apple trees galore!) 

On Monday, the children enjoyed being curious and making observations of a variety of different apples.  They used magnifying glasses to look more closely and even created observational drawings and water color pictures of their findings.

 

Their observations included thoughts on the size and shape, color, texture, parts of an apple such as the stem, and more.  They came to the conclusion that even though all of the apples are different sizes and colors, all apples all round!  They also liked discovering that apples can be green, yellow, red and combinations of all the colors.

After our initial observations, we created a web of some of our apple "wonderings".  We are getting REALLY good at being curious scientists!  The children had endless amounts of questions they wanted to investigate.  A few examples...

"Why are apples white inside?"

"Why do apples have skin?"

"Why do apples have a stem?"

"Why do apples taste different?"

We wrote some of our questions down...

We decided it was time to get busy answering our many questions!  Literacy, science tools, conversation, each other's knowledge and artifacts are guiding our inquiry and answers.  Our field trip that is now scheduled for Friday, September 28th will be another link to our apple inquiry.

We enjoyed dissecting an apple and learning about the different parts.  We labeled all of the parts of an apple highlighting the words skin, stem, leaf, flesh, core and seeds.  The children have liked using magnifying glasses to look more closely at each part of the apple.  We discovered that apples have different amounts of seeds inside when we had them for snack one afternoon!

We have been busy reading many stories about how apples grow.  The children love seeing pictures of apple trees and often ask if we can plant one.  We decided we could make an apple tree similar to the tree we had made in the project room.  This lead to our collaborative apple tree mural project.  The children worked together to create the trunk using brown paint.  Next, they used brown construction paper to rip branches.  Since we had learned that apples can be red, green and yellow, we used these colors to make apple prints (using real apples) on our tree.  It turned out great and the best part is that it was a collaboration done all by the children!

Adding the apples...

We love watching the children express their discoveries and inquiries each day.  Conversation, art creation and new questions have been a few ways the children demonstrate what they have learned.  Check out the beginning of our apple inquiry in the hallway!  The children have been using their knowledge of letter sounds or environmental print to write apple, apple tree, apple colors and more.  More to come next week.

We created an apple glyph this week.  A glyph is a picture graph that tells information about us.  Glyph projects offer another great connection to our year long study of self/identity as they involve each child answering questions and sharing information about themselves.  Glyphs are also a great activity that involve math, literacy, small motor tasks, following directions and more.  We try and complete a different glyph for each month according to our studies and themes.  With this glyph the children answered four questions about themselves and their apple favorites.  We had fun discussing our answers and interpreting the data on all of our friend's glyphs.

From our glyphs we learned:
-We have 9 girls and 6 boys in our class
-Most of us like to eat an apple cut in slices
-Most of us prefer sweet apples over sour apples

We ended the week meeting our 3rd grade buddies for the very first time!  We are buddies with Mrs. Moore's 3rd grade class and will be meeting with them twice a month usually on Day 5.  There were smiles all around, great conversation and laughter as the 3rd graders and preschoolers completed a "get to know you" project using a venn diagram.  They talked about ways they are alike and different, which fits in perfectly with our "all about me" focus!  We look forward to many more projects and adventures with our new friends this year.

What a great week.  Have a wonderful weekend!

GO MUSTANGS!

Specialists Next Week

9/24-Day 2
*Morning music
9/25-Day 3
*Morning art and afternoon P.E.
9/26-Day 4
*Morning music and afternoon mindfulness
9/27-Day 5
*Morning P.E.
9/28-Day 6
*NO MORNING ART DUE TO FIELD TRIP

Dates to Remember:

Friday, September 28th- Rescheduled Field Trip to Minnetonka Apple Orchard

Saturday, September 22nd- Blessing of the Animals and Breck Homecoming

Thursday, October 4th and Friday, October 5th- Conferences- No School

Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th- Faculty Workshop- No School

A note from Mrs. Zosel (our Lower School Chaplin):

Hi - if you can include this in blogs etc that would be great!  Thanks!  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 3:30-4:15 PM | Sukkah Decorating Party (near the Labyrinth). All are invited to help decorate our Sukkah, which is a handmade striation that honors the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. Join us for snacks and help create and hang fall garlands and art. The Sukkah will be in place until October 2. Questions or want to volunteer? Contact LS Chaplain Nan Zosel. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 10:00 AM | Blessing of the Animals (outside US Entrance). Families are invited to bring pets or stuffed animals for this spirit filled tradition. Art faculty Kat Corrigan and her family will share a puppet show that you “otter” see! Other members of the Breck art department will create pet portraits; optional donations will go to the Animal Humane Society.