London's Learning--A is for Apple

One thing that we've started since we moved into our new home is getting London ready for pre-school.  It's nothing too crazy, just a couple of little crafts and activities throughout the day. We probably do around 30 minutes every morning and then maybe 15-30 after her nap.  Some days she wants to go longer, and some days we do maybe 10 minutes because that's all she can handle.  I try to keep it fun for her and have it be something she looks forward to. 

I've been doing a theme for every week, and for our first week I chose the ever-classic "A is for Apple."  Here are some of the things we did.

To work on letter recognition we did an apple a and an alligator A.  You can see them up on London's art wall here.  I forgot to take individual pictures of them, so this is as good as it's gonna get. ;)

You can find tutorials on our "A" crafts here and here.

We also did a "sticker search."  This is a simple game where we look for the letter A all over the house.  Once London finds one, we put an "A" sticker on it.  We also played where we just had to find something that started with the letter A.  This version was a little bit beyond her right now, but it was fun for me to mix it up a little.

I've been working on making London a fabric alphabet (inspiration found here), and thought they would be fun to use while we work on our letters.  We use these for a game too.  I will hide the letters and give her hints on where to find them.  She gets so pumped when she finally does.  "I FOUND THE A!!!!" Trust me, it's awesome.  I'm just excited that she's starting to realize that not every letter is 'G'.  Parenthood is all about the small things.

 And our last letter recognition activity was a game we played on the chalkboard.  I would write a word and she would find the A's in it.  It was fun (and easy!) and helped us focus on the difference between uppercase and lowercase.

Our favorite not-Disney Princess.

"Ok," you're thinking, "this is all well and good, but where are the apples??"  Don't worry your pretty little heads! They're coming.  We did apple crafts to work on our fine motor skills...

Sorry instagram followers, you have already seen this cuteness. Apple prints for our apple wreath.

This was her favorite project.  She cut out all the strips we glued to the apple.  Tutorial here.

Working on her fine motor apples.

Quote of the week: "Mom, I got Blue's Clues hands!"

Finished fine motor apples.  Tutorial here.

Didn't get any close ups of our wreath or our apple tree, but here is the tutorial for our yarn apples in the tree.

I also made a sensory bin for with an "apple pie" theme.  IT SMELLED DELICIOUS.  

Juliet got in on this action.

Making "apple cookies." Sounds good.

Smells good enough to eat!

You can find the how-to on our sensory bin here.

There was also apple pie playdough...which also smelled delicious.

Directions found here.

 And school isn't school without a little math and science, right?

We counted apple seeds.

Simple and fun.  Explanation here.

And we observed how vinegar and baking soda react in our apple volcanoes.  "BUBBLES!!"

The set-up.

This never gets old!!!

Tutorial here.

As much fun as all this was, I have to say the crowning moment of the week was our field trip to an apple orchard.  It was a long drive, but so much fun!  London loved running through the trees and exploring the farm.  We went to Nivens Apple Farm, near Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Butterfly enjoying a fallen apple.  These little guys were everywhere!

Because we were there too!

They have a pumpkin patch too!

 Once we got back home from our excursion, both girls felt the need to immediately dive into the apples we brought home..

After naps, we had an apple feast!  Complete with several kinds of apple slices, apple butter sandwiches, and an apple fritter.  

So there you go.  I actually had a lot of fun with this, so hopefully London is liking it too.