My Father's World--The Letter A (Apple)

We learned about the letter A and apples last week!  Unfortunately, the local orchard where we picked lots of free apples last year didn't have a good crop this year so we weren't able to go there on a field trip.  But, my good friend Amy has a tree in her yard and let us come look at the apples and pick the few remaining ones.  They were tasty!

We made lowercase "A's" into apples, an idea we got from my friend Kristin's blog.  My friend Amanda was having some severe neck pain, as well as being in the process of moving, so I invited her 4 year old daughter to join us for the day for school.  She loved doing the crafts just like Ali does.  Funny how little boys and little girls are so different!

We cut apples different ways and painted with them on our binder pages which had the theme for the week, "If I stay in Jesus, I will have much fruit."

I invented a new lunch for the kids, which they absolutely loved!  I have a bunch of frozen rolls from a bulk food order through a friend's ordering club.  I thawed them so they had raised by lunch time.  Then I smashed them flat and put pizza sauce and a slice of mozzarella between two flattened rolls for homemade pizza pockets!  To make them look like apples I added a green pepper for a stem and a tomato for a leaf. 

For a dessert, I took some of the rolls and put a caramel and some chopped apples between two rolls for a caramel apple pocket.  We made leaves from apple slices and stems from grapes.  They were sooooo yummy and soooooo easy!  The kids went ga-ga over this meal!

One day we observed the differences between the 4 kinds of apples we had and then taste-tested all of them.  All of the kids liked the Golden Delicious apple best, with the Gala one taking second place.

We had to make our favorite fall snack, which I have always loved and looked forward to making in the fall.  They peeled caramels and then dipped them in the melted caramel all by themselves.

We read books about apples and one of their favorites was Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie.  They love the crazy antics of A.B!  So, we had to make homemade apple pie too!  They all got to make their own little crust, chop their apples, add the spices and sugar, and help me shape the dough into 3 individual little pies.  I made a large pie for Daddy and I too.  They were thrilled to be allowed to eat a whole little pie for snacktime!  I think it was the first-ever snacktime where they didn't beg for more snacks and complain that they were still hungry!

We learned a lot about Johnny Appleseed.  I didn't know much about him myself so it was fun to learn along with the kids.  We watched several cute youtube clips about him (and also about how an apple tree grows) and sang the Johnny Appleseed song.  I even dressed up like him to amuse the kids and then they wanted to do it too!  Here Ali is holding her "bag of seeds" and a toy apple, with a ragged cloak and a pot on her head.

Several friends who are teachers or have homeschooled have given me craft/preschool extras and this Johnny Appleseed craft was one of them.  The kids had fun putting the pieces together with glue.

Pumpkins don't have much to do with apples (other than that both are popular harvest/fall foods) but the homeschoolers in our area had the annual field trip to the Pumpkin Patch so we enjoyed a morning there.  I even crocheted my little nephew Jed and Katri a beret and a headband for the event and found them outfits for the occasion at the wonderful local thrift shop for 35 cents each!

Aren't they darling!  I love this pic!

We tried this week to focus more on Ali's schoolwork than the boys'.  The boys' work (MFW Kindergarten) involves more crafts, hands-on stuff, and projects, aka "fun stuff" so sometimes it can swallow up most of our schooltime, making it hard for me to get Ali to focus on the work she needs to be doing for MFW 1st Grade.  So, I'm trying to blend the two, and make sure Ali gets her stuff done too.  She is reading for Book-It and read some easy readers about apples to the boys.  We did an A-words treasure hunt like we do each week for the letter of the week and she practices her writing and spelling putting the words down on the list.  They colored their A pages and practiced writing A's on whiteboards and their binder pages.   We did Math-U-See and our regular things like chore chart, weather chart, Bible verses, prayer time, etc.

And.....I didn't take a pic, but I decided to try this recipe on Wednesday and make some caramel apple cheesecake for the first time.  Yummy!  We had a few unexpected visitors this week (and one of my friends also had a birthday) so we were happy to share a slice with them!