Tag: apple centers

Apples, Fall

Apple Activities for Preschoolers- A September Teaching Tote

Lauren Johnson

*This blog post contains affiliate links that can earn me commission at no additional cost to you. When you use the links to access the resources, you are supporting my small business, which is greatly appreciated!*

Welcome!! I’m creating this blog post to inspire some apple themed play and learning between you and your preschooler. If you’re looking for some engaging and hands on apple themed ideas, you’re in the right place!! I will use this platform to explain in detail all the elements of my first Apples Teaching Tote – a play based kit that I’ve created for families like you to rent, learn and return. If you are not local to the Mount Airy, MD area, don’t worry! I will describe all the resources available in this bin so that you can find exactly what you need for your preschoolers. Click the photo for a direct link to each item or activity!

Let’s start with the books!

This tote includes seven apple themed books to help immerse your preschooler in the apple season. I’ll explain each one and if you are interested in a direct link, just click the photo!

Mine! By: Candace Fleming

Mine! is a beautifully illustrated story about a juicy red apple that catches the eye of several forest animals. Each animal claims the apple as their own without knowing that the others around them all have the same idea. When the apple falls, a scuffle ensues and a unsuspecting forest friend obtains the juicy treat. This is a wonderful way to start a conversation about sharing and considering the feelings of others, while celebrating the sweet red fruit.

Apples A to Z By: Margaret McNamara

Apples A to Z introduces each letter of the alphabet page by page by describing a word that connects to apples in some way. Vibrant and lively pictures accompany each description. Your preschoolers can learn more about the parts of apples, types of apples, all the things you can create with apples and the process of creating these things. The book is a great choice to accompany any alphabet activity or preparing a yummy apple treat.

Apples, Apples, Apples By: Nance Elizabeth Wallace

Apples, Apples, Apples follows a sweet bunny family to an apple orchard to pick apples for snacks, baking and crafts. The collage style illustrations are absolutely adorable and add dimension to the story. During their visit, the farmer shows them different types of apples, the parts of an apple and how an apple tree grows. The family goes home to have their snack, make applesauce and do an apple craft. An applesauce recipe and directions for the apple craft are included in the story! A eye-catching mix of story and facts, this book is a must have for an apple theme.

Ten Apples Up on Top! By: Dr. Seuss

Ten Apples Up on Top! is a silly story about three animal friends who compete to balance as many apples on their head as they can. Of course, the fun story is written in verse, so it supports important language skills like rhyming words and rhythm. The apple stacks also get bigger as the story progresses so that you can practice counting numbers 1 – 10 with your child throughout the story. This book is a perfect companion to an apple themed counting activity.

The Season’s of Arnold’s Apple Tree By: Gail Gibbons

The Season’s of Arnold’s Apple Tree details the characteristics of Arnold’s Apple Tree throughout the four seasons of the year. As he spends time by his apple tree, he notes the buds in spring, the full leaves in summer, the juicy apples in fall and the bare branches in winter. This book even provides an apple pie recipe and explains how a cider press works. And it’s all through the eyes of a boy who loves to play outside by his apple tree.

Apples By: Gail Gibbons

Speaking of Gail Gibbons, can you even have an apple theme without this book?! Apples is a nonfiction story about the types of apples, Johnny Appleseed, parts of apples, how apples are used and how to grow an apple tree. The details are accompanied by lively and colorful illustrations to draw your child in. Even if you have younger learners who may not be able to attend to all the information, the illustrations are certainly worth sharing to introduce everything apples.

Tap the Magic Tree By Christie Matheson

Tap the Magic Tree is one of my absolute favorite apple stories. It is an interactive journey through a year with the apple tree. Each page invites your child to interact with the story by tapping, shaking or blowing the tree (and more!). You get to see the tree grow buds, flowers, drops its pedals, grow apples, drop it’s leaves and go dormant for the winter. This is also a wonderful way to introduce seasons to your little learners.

Also included in the Apples Teaching Tote are a collection of puzzles, toys, games and activities centered around apples. Read on to see what I’ve chosen for this tote!

We absolutely love the Magnetic Apple Number Maze from Melissa and Doug. It allows your child to use their fine motor skills and dexterity to use the magnetic wand and guide each little apple to the baskets. Each basket is numbered so they have to work carefully, adding just the right amount of apples to each one. This one is also perfect for on-the-go because it is interactive but all the small pieces are contained!

Wiggly Worms is a fun game that explores colors and challenges your memory! The worms wiggle around while you try to find a color that matches your card. You can replay as many times and you want and your child does not need to be able to read to play the game. Wahoo!

Another apple themed toy that I am so excited to include in this Teaching Tote is the Apple Picking Magnetic Tree. This toy is an open ended way to explore apple picking and the apple colors red, yellow and green. Use the small grabbers to strengthen fine motor skills and sort the colors. The base even comes with different size mushrooms that you can sort into their different holes. You can also embed in some number practice while playing with this toy by counting the number of fruit you pick from the tree. Pretend to be a farmer or pretend to be visiting a farm, pick your apples then use them to play!

I will always include sensory activities in a Teaching Tote. This Apple themed Teaching Tote actually includes 2 different sensory activities that you can easily recreate in your classroom or at home learning setting.

Create your own apple bobbing station with a small bin and some foam apples. Using a pair of tongs, your preschooler can transfer the floating apples from inside the bin to outside the bin. Encourage them count as they go. If you don’t have foam apples, you can also use red foam blocks.

This is one of my favorite sensory bins! I created the base by dying dry chickpeas with liquid watercolor paint. Then I added apple mini erasers (linked in photo) and a small grabber. The apple icons are taped to small plastic bowls from the Dollar Tree. These labels can be found the the Apple Fine Motor Activities set from my TpT shop. You can find the link to that at the bottom of this post.

Every Teaching Tote includes hands-on activities to help your preschooler engage in early concepts like visual discrimination, the alphabet, counting, numbers, colors, and shapes. This tote includes 5 learning activities that perfectly accompany the books, games and toys that I’ve shared so far. You can click the photographs for the direct links to each activity. I will also link the icons at the bottom of this post.

Visual discrimination is such an important skill when it comes to identifying, sorting and classifying objects. In this Apple Teaching Tote, you will find a Build and Apple Tree activity designed to help your preschooler strengthen their visual discrimination skills in a hands-on and fun way. It is easy to play! Just set the Build and Apple Tree Mat in front of your preschooler and provide the apple cut outs in reach. Have your preschooler pick a card and build a matching apple tree on the mat. Ask your preschooler- what color apples does your tree have? How many red? How many yellow? How many green? What color has the most? What color has the least? Continue to pick a card and build the different apple trees, letting your preschooler set the pace. Challenge your preschooler to create their own apple tree and tell you about it.

I’ve included 2 learning activities in this teaching tote that are designed to strengthen number sense and counting skills, the Apple Tree Number Sort and the Apple Count and Build Cards. Both of the activities are a part of the Apple Counting Math Centers set available in my TpT.

The Apple Count and Build Cards are a fun and easy way to practice counting 1 – 10 and introduce your preschooler to tens frames, building a foundation for a strong number sense. Simply pick a card, count the apples in the truck and show the quantity in the tens frame. Click the photo to grab the apple mini erasers pictured. Click the photo below to grab the printables.

The Apple Number Sort is a wonderful way to introduce your preschoolers to number forms. The apple cards show numbers 1 – 10 in 5 ways: number, dice, quantity, tens frame and word form. Choose 2-4 numbers to practice and place the corresponding apples in a draw pile. Take turns picking an apple and placing it on the correct tree.

Of course I’ve included some letter practice in this Teaching Tote as well! These alphabet activities will have your preschooler identifying, naming and writing uppercase and lowercase letters. The Apple Find & Clip as well as the Apple Trace the Room are both included in the Apple Alphabet Activities resource in my TpT shop.

I love getting preschoolers excited about learning letters by adding a little movement into the activity. With this Trace the Room, I hid letter tiles (about 3) in small plastic apple containers. Simply set the apple containers around the room and challenge your preschooler to find one, open it, say the letters inside and trace them on their recording sheet. Continue until all the letters are found. Click the photo for a direct link to the apple containers!

Clip activities are such a fun way to practice fine motor skills! With this Apple Find & Clip, have your preschooler find a letter card and clip the matching letter on the Find & Clip Mat. You can choose to practice with uppercase or lowercase letters. Both of these alphabet activities are part of the Apple Activities resource in my TpT. Click the photo to check it out!

I want to end this blog post with an explanation of this adorable apple tree craft that is included in the Apple Teaching Tote. This craft makes an cute hand keepsake and classroom display and it’s super easy to prepare! Just have your preschooler trace their hand on brown paper and draw a tree leaf shape for the leaves (I explained it by saying it looks like a cloud). Glue these pieces to form a tree on a separate sheet of paper. Add apple color dot stickers (red, yellow and/or green) to the tree and Voila! You have a sweet craft to display proudly for your little learner.

I hope this post was helpful to you! If you’re local to the Mount Airy, MD area and you are interested in renting all of these fun items, please click the Teaching Totes icon to visit my Teaching Totes website and contact me for booking!

If you would like more information about the learning activities featured in this blog post, click the icons below! Happy playing!!

Apples, Fall, Sensory Play

Apple Activities For Preschool *FREE Download*

Lauren Johnson

It’s apple picking season once again so I thought I’d share some more fun, hands-on activities you can do with your preschoolers to get them excited about apples. This post includes apple book inspiration, sensory play ideas, and some dramatic play inspiration, including a free download for your apples dramatic play center.

Whenever I am planning a new theme for the playroom, I always start with the children’s literature. I have grown a pretty big personal library over the years, but still scour the library for themed titles as well when there is a particular one that I want. If you’d like to see my full collection of apple books, click the Instagram link below.

There are so many fun apple themed books to choose from, so it’s hard to narrow it down to a few favorites. But I chose four titles to highlight in this post so that you can narrow down your search as well.

Apple Farmer Annie, by Monica Wellington, is a simple story about a farmer, Annie, who prepares her apples and apple products for a market in the city. The illustrations are vibrant and engaging. The text is straightforward and well suited to hold the attention of a preschooler.

Tap the Magic Apple Tree, by Christie Matheson is an interactive book about the cycle of an apple tree through the seasons. The really fun thing about this book is that each page asks the reader to do an action (i.e. tap the book, rub the leaves, blow on the leaves, ect.) and the kids love it! Each page reveals a new development from flower buds, to apples, to falling leaves. This one gets picked up off our shelf over and over.

Ten Apples Up On Top, by Dr. Seuss, is an apple book classic. Of course, the clever rhyme schemes in this story make it fun and silly. Because it follows three animals competing to see who can balance apples on their heads while doing different activities, it also lends itself to counting practice (Another post on counting apples activities soon!).

Ted Red Apples, by Pat Hutchins is also another favorite that tells the story of a farmer whose farm animals keep eating the apples on his apple tree. The story counts down from 10 as each new animal takes an apple. This book has sing-song verse that kids love and lends itself very well to teaching sequence of events as well as counting.

Sensory play is always a must when introducing a new theme. I like to make sensory bins for the playroom and alternate them every week. I also like to KEEP IT SIMPLE. Sensory bins don’t have to cost a fortune to be fun, most teachers and moms are on a budget. I totally get that! I keep several sensory bin bases on hand to use and reuse. Black beans are probably my favorite sensory bin base because I love how they make the other colors pop. I chose black beans for the apple sensory bin because they resemble apple seeds. I added red, green, and yellow pom poms which I already had on hand. The red and green scoops were a free giveaway from another teacher cleaning out her classroom (I will keep them handy for Christmas time too!) and the wooden bowls are from my kitchen. The only thing I purchased were the small foam apples (Amazon) and the cost was well worth it because that was several years ago and I use them all the time.

Play doh trays are another fun way to incorporate sensory play into your apple theme. This apple play doh tray invited my little learners to create apple trees with the materials. I offered green play doh, small sticks, red, yellow, and green buttons, and play doh rollers. The preschoolers got right to it, making a sweet little apple orchard. This activity allowed for conversation about colors, counting, and size comparison.

Dot stickers and butcher paper activities are a favorite here and when you put them together- wow!!! My preschoolers were very excited to decorate the apple trees on this butcher paper. I started by drawing the outline of three large trees. Then I gave them each a sheet of red, yellow and green stickers. I left this open ended, they could decide where to put the stickers. But you could easily make this a color sorting activity by labeling each tree with a certain color. If you draw the trees smaller and label them with numbers, this could become a counting game as well!

When it comes to dramatic play, I like to change out this Melissa and Doug Grocery Stand about every month or so. If you can get ahold of this exact stand, it is the best for small spaces in my opinion! I was able to grab one off of Facebook Marketplace for our playroom and it fits very well in the corner of our playroom. I love how versatile the compartments are in the front. 9 empty bins ready to be transformed! This stand does come with 9 chalkboard labels that hang on the front, but I actually never use those. When it comes to labeling the dramatic play area, there are so many fun and engaging sets out there that you can use. Because we have a small space dedicated to dramatic play, I prefer to just make my own labels using photographs of our actual space. The pictures on each bin label are actual photographs of the bins themselves. This helps preschoolers know exactly how to put things away when it’s time to clean up. Especially because so many components can easily get strewn about!

Our apple stand has lots of apple products for little customers to buy. There’s unopened apple juice bottles, faux apples (from At Home), mini pie tins (Amazon), felt pie crust, and red and green pom poms for the pie filler. The bushel basket is from Michael’s and I honestly wish I would have purchased at least two. The kids absolutely love filling the basket with apples then emptying it again.

If you would like to use the apples banner or any of the apple stand labels for your dramatic play area, you can download them for FREE by clicking the button below. The file is editable, so you can add your own photographs and text onto the labels.

apple-market-banner-and-labels-pptDownload Apple Banner and Labels Here

You may also be interested in these apple resources from my shop!

Fall, Fine Motor Skills, Seasons

5 Ways to Use Do A Dot Pages Without Do A Dot Markers **FREE Download**

Lauren Johnson

Teachers and parents are always short on time. If I can get multiple uses out of the same resource, I consider that a major WIN. Do A Dot printables are so fun and there are an abundance of free resources available online that you can download and print. My kids absolutely love using the dot markers to decorate their artwork. But, truth be told, sometimes I’m reluctant to get the markers out for them to use. My toddler loves to dot herself and her clothes and my preschooler can finish dot art pages pretty quickly with the markers. It often turns into a huge mess in a very short amount of time. In an effort to make Do A Dot printables more worth their while, I brainstormed and tested a few new ways to use them.

Do A Dot Play-Doh

If you find Do A Dot printables available in color, grab them for your stash!!! I designed 4 versions of this printable, specifically with the playdough idea in mind. My preschooler chose his favorite color to work on. It was a great way to practice manipulating dough and identifying colors. Make sure you laminate your pages so that you can use and reuse them without the Play Doh ruining the color.

Do A Dot Buttons

I am the type of person who saves craft supplies for all eternity and I found these buttons stashed away in a jar in my cabinet. They worked perfectly for this fine motor activity. My preschooler chose the red apple to complete this time. My buttons had a bit of variation among their size and color, which sparked some meaningful conversation. Best of all, when we were finished, we could curl up the page and slide the buttons right back into the jar. No mess!!!

Do A Dot Flat Marbles

Adding flat marbles to the Do A Dot pages was a hit!! My preschooler spent the most time with this fine motor center. The flat marbles are smooth and heavy enough to sit still on the pages where you place them. Not to mention, they are shiny and see through!! This option was very engaging for my kids. Flat marbles, also called glass vase filler, can be found at any craft supply store. If you are lucky, you can find the color you need at a dollar store and save some money.

Do A Dot Circle Labels

The Do A Dot Circle Label option can be used in color or black and white. I chose to use color this time, but it would be just as fun letting the kids decide which color stickers to use on their creation. Using circle labels gave me a chance to do a little differentiation with my kids. I left the labels blank for my toddler and added letters on the labels for my preschooler. I wrote upper case letters on the apple and lower case letters on the labels. My toddler was able to develop her fine motor skills and hand eye coordination while my preschooler practiced identifying letters. You can even use these labels to match sight words or numbers as well.

Do A Dot Light Box Exploration

In order to use the Do A Dot pages for a light box exploration, you will need to print the black and white version. I used regular printer paper and the light shone through just fine, but if you have transparency paper, that would work even better. I am currently in a home setting, so I don’t actually have a light box. But whenever I plan fun light box activities, my son’s tracing tablet will do the trick. The circular chips that we used to place into the circles are transparent, so they looked really bright up against the light. My toddler absolutely loved this activity. She attended to it for at least 15 minutes, which is a lot of time for her to do just one thing, considering she’s not even two (I will also mention, I monitored her the entire time as these pieces can be choking hazards).

There are so many Do A Dot printables available on the internet, many for free. If you need help narrowing down the options, feel free to follow me on Pinterest (Click the Pinterest icon at the top of this page). I will only pin quality links so you won’t have to waste your time figuring out if the downloads work. They will!! If you like the apple Do A Dot printables that were featured in this post, download them for FREE by clicking the button below. And please don’t forget to comment below if you saw something you loved!! I love to see and hear about my resources in action. Thank you!!

do a dot apple printable

Do you need MORE Do a Dot Printables for your collection?? Click the button below to discover more Fall Themed Do a Dot Printables for your fall centers.

Fall themed do a dot printables