All About Apples! An Apple Finale!

I like to end my study of Apples with a day of cooking in the classroom. There is always so much joy when I bring a cooking activity into the classroom. Magic seems to fill the air while curiosity and engagement fill the students eyes. Plus, an added bonus if you make something with a delectable aroma such as this delicious and easy Applesauce Recipe!

I must admit, I found this recipe from Persnickety Plates. I love to cook, but I am still a novice in creating my own recipes! Thank goodness for blogs like hers!

This freebie is included with my Johnny Appleseed product (read more here) as well as my Bushel and a Peck of Numbers (read more here) all together in my All About Apples Bundle here!

     

Check out all the details below!

Keep your head in the clouds!

1200 Followers! THANK YOU!

When I first moved back to Jersey in 2014 from my wonderful time in Boston, I decided I would take the summer off and not work. With my newfound free time (and a boyfriend living two states over), I began exploring how to create products on Teachers Pay Teachers. I made one single product and posted it. It became more popular than I anticipated and thus started my adventures in TPT!

There were years I didn't touch my TPT store (in 2015 I my boyfriend moved back home, we bought a condo, got a puppy, got engaged and I switched school districts!), yet the followers still trickled on in. And so, I THANK YOU! It's always been fun for me to create things for the classroom, but it's so fulfilling to share it with fellow educators.

My 1200 Follower Freebie is here!

There are four different templates. Some pre-made and others completely editable for you to make it work for your own classroom needs! Below are my weekly templates, but each template comes in monthly as well!

THANK YOU for choosing to follow my products on TPT. If you don't already, click here to do so! Then you'll be the first to know when I post my next follower freebie!

Keep your head in the clouds!

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!

One of the reasons I love to do apples at that the start of the year is because the unit hits a crescendo on September 26th in celebration of Johnny Appleseed's birthday! I've put together some of my favorite activities I use to celebrate one of America's beloved characters.

I love teaching new topics with coloring book mini books. They offer visuals to help understand the writing and they're perfect for children to turn to and color for independent work when they are early finishers. 

There's of course, an apple investigation! I have two options for greater differentiation. There is a one sheet option as well as a mini book containing each activity from the investigation on individual pages. You can read more about my Apple Investigations here. If you're interested in just downloading the Apple Investigation single sheet, you can do so by clicking here.

I love ending Apple Investigations with Apple Tasting! I bring in a few apples of each color and we all taste test them together as a class. Not only is it a fun way to practice our scientific observations skills but it ties in the five senses and builds great classroom community as students have opportunities to share each other's opinions and compare their thoughts.

We also make a class graph with our favorite apples to eat! Talk about STEM in action!

There are also Literacy Resources as well! One of my favorite activities to offer Kindergartners is Color by Sight Word. I love the fine motor skills practice of coloring in smaller areas while incorporating sight word practice with color word practice.

Here's also a sneak peek at the Apple Easy Reader Mini Book that's also included:

With more pages included in the pack!

Plus a Johnny Appleseed hat and more! Is there any other activities you are sure to include when you celebrate Johnny's birthday?

Click below to download the Johnny Appleseed product from my TPT store:

If you want even MORE Apple downloads, check out my All About Apples product here:

Keep your head in the clouds!

Selfie Portraits

One of my first jobs as a teacher was in a district that celebrated learning at the end of the year with a Portfolio Day. We as teachers collected pieces of work throughout the year to pull together in their end of year Kindergarten portfolio. It was a little piece of pride and joy for the kiddos as well as the teachers!

After that experience, I always find myself looking for ways to show tangible growth across the school year. I loved having pieces of the portfolio to pull out in IEP meetings, parent teacher conferences, or just to show students how much they've improved since September! My favorite piece of growth has always been self portraits. I LOVE seeing how the fine motor skills grow and how much detail students start to add into their self portraits each month. I couldn't help myself, but to embrace the children's love of selfies with, Selfie Portraits!

Each month has themed clip art and a cell phone for students to draw their selfie! Instead of the usual mirror we've used in the past to look at to make a self portrait, I also allowed students to use the classroom ipads to look at their own selfie to help them draw! 

Plus, it includes monthly name writing practice on the line at the top! Another great piece of growth to show parents throughout the year. Check out some more samples below! You can purchase Selfie Portraits from my TPT store, here.

Keep your head in the clouds!

I Love You, A Bushel and a Peck

I am ALWAYS looking to build my repertoire of center activities. They are perfect for small group work as well as early finisher activities or morning work options! This apple themed math activity is one of the first centers I pull out during Math rotations!

Download it here!

It covers all the basics of numeracy for the start of Kindergarten Math! There is numeral identification, ten frame recognition and counting, tally mark recognition and counting as well as finger counting! To top it all off, the recording sheet incorporates handwriting with numeral writing practice!

There are two separate recording sheets, one for numbers 1-10 and one for numbers 11-20. Plus, for easier differentiation, each recording sheet has a blank version and a dotted version for tracing! Don't you just love when differentiation can be made with a touch of the copy machine! Plus they look so similar, students feel like they are doing the same as their peers. I like to write names on the sheets ahead of time and sometimes I even let them choose which page they would prefer!

When it comes to center activities, I am a huge proponent for REPETITION! The first time a child is working with an activity, they are learning the HOW of it- what are the rules? How do I keep play going? What do I do if this happens? The second day is when they've mastered the how and are now focused on the content involved. For the first two times in a center, I like to have an adult running it to help answer any questions and ensure both the HOW and the CONTENT are being performed correctly. After that, I can usually put a center out as an independent rotation from time to time.

I love the ease of these to create independence early in the year- and especially love how it goes with Apples for Back to School theme, Autumn theme, or a general Apple Theme!

For even more apple fun, download my All About Apples Bundle here!

Keep your head in the clouds!

An Apple a Day

There's something about September in Kindergarten that screams TEACH ABOUT APPLES! I don't know if it's the connection to Fall and the seasons, if it's merely a tangible topic that most kids have some background knowledge on, or if it's just teachers are born with an inclination toward their career's symbolic fruit, but Apples are my favorite way to kick off Science in Kindergarten!

Our first unit in Science is mainly to teach students how to be scientists through observation. This is why I like to kick start my Apple Unit with a hands on Apple Investigation.

It's part of my Dollar Deal on Apples! You can download it as a single sheet here.

If you're using the same apple for the entire investigation, it's best to do the color, stem, leaf, and measurements first. Next, I move on to sinking or floating, and finally I end with cutting and investigating the seeds before, our fan favorite in K, the taste test!

This year, in an effort to simplify the investigation for my little ones, I decided to split my investigation into a mini book! Each piece of the investigation got it's own page. (Here's a sampling below)

I made each page a center. Students rotated through, completing and collecting pages as we went along. They LOVED building the book as we went and I saw a big difference in their concentration per each investigation. This mini book can be found in my Johnny Appleseed product here! I can't wait to showcase you even more from that later this week.

Download the single sheet Apple Investigation in my TPT store here.

If you want to explore the Mini Book, check out my Johnny Appleseed bundle in my TPT store here! (The single sheet investigation is also included in this product!)

For even more apple fun, download my All About Apples Bundle!

I Scream for Hopes and Dreams

It's Labor Day, which is usually the telltale sign that Summer Break is officially over here in Jersey. This year is different for me. For the first time in roughly 27 years, I am not heading into a classroom as a student or a teacher (some years, I was both!). I'm on Maternity Leave to start this year! Could you blame me for wanting to stay home with this guy?

Photo Credit: Janet Lanza Photography

However, once a teacher, always a teacher! I cannot help but reflect on Back to School seasons of years past. My school is rooted in the ideals of Responsive Classroom and in nearly every classroom, you can find Hopes and Dreams for the students, teachers, and sometimes even parents posted year round as goals for students to develop and work on all year.

As many of my lessons as a Kindergarten teacher begin, I love kicking off Hopes and Dreams with a book. My kiddos LOVE Leo the Lightning Bug!

Have you read this one before? It's the darling story of Leo the Lightning Bug and his challenges and struggles to make his own bright light like the other lightning bugs. I have found it to be a great tangible connection for students to create their own hopes and dreams for the year. It doesn't have to be the same as their friends and it could even be something their friends are able to do well that they aren't able to.. YET! It's a story about resilience and never giving up. It's a great way to begin the thought process on what their own personal hopes and dreams would be for the school year.

Hopes and Dreams in my room are shared and posted ALL. YEAR. LONG. On days when we need a mood lift or a reminder of why we are in school and what we are working for all year, we refer back to our Hopes and Dreams. For something to be posted for the entirety of the year, I needed something I was willing to see all year. And so came, I Scream for Hopes and Dreams!

This adorable craftivity can be found in my TPT store here!

Best Part? It's a dollar deal!

That's right, ONE dollar for a meaningful and estetically pleasing lesson. Because who needs any more stress during Back to School season?

Enjoy this deal or pin it to save for next year!

Keep your head in the clouds!