Apple lesson (part 2)

It is apple season!  And we finished up last week with another lesson on apples.  I picked a few fun crafts and activities I thought the kiddos would enjoy and I hope you do to.....

For our craft, I found this cute idea here

 Again, couldn't take pictures during the project but here's the after pictures. 

My kids love to help cook, so I like to plan time for them to do just that.  I had seen an idea on pinterest to make individual little apple pies using crescent rolls.  Sounded yummy to me!

Can't get that boy to just smile anymore....he thinks this is the funniest pose ever!  LOL

 

 Here they are spreading melted butter on the crescent roll, sprinkling on some cinnamon, and rolling up an apple slice inside.

Ta Da!

 

Here's the after baked photo.  They were pretty good considering we didn't even add any sugar to it!

I got out our foam craft sticks while I cleaned up snack messes.  They used the sticks to build shapes and letters

We played "hot apple" and if they had the apple when the music stopped they had to answer a question about apples (where do they grow?  what's inside? what can you make with  them? etc)  This probably works better in a large group setting where you can actually pass the apple around in a circle without everyone's hands already on it.  haha

And finally...they now know all there is to know about apples!! (At least at a 2&3 yr old level).  So they earned an apple tattoo.  Here they are showing it off.....

No more dirty chairs

Finally we have clean dining room chairs!  We no longer have to be  completely embarrassed or bring up new chairs for our guests to sit in just so they don't have to sit on this......

 And this......

 Yes, totally gross, disgusting, stained beyond help chair pads.  When we would apologize for this disaster and offer a different chair, most people just laughed (and then willingly accepted a new chair), my mom friends sympathized and to family it just became the norm.  But you know it's bad when other KIDS come over and don't even want to sit in 'those chairs'.  

How did they get this way you ask?........................

AND......................

 

Yep, as cute as they are those little boogers can make any meal a mess and will use anything (yes anything including a chair pad) as a napkin.

It was really just their chairs that were beyond disgusting, but when you change one, you might as well change them all so they match.

So, we ripped off the seat cushions and got to work.................

 

 We didn't get too funky with our material although we had hoped to something more fun and bright.  We found a lot of cool fabric that we really liked, but it was either way more $$ than we wanted to spend or it wasn't meant for upholstery.  So, we stuck with the basic boring beige.  A little darker than what we had, but we stain guarded the heck out of them this time.  

 Wow, you're impressed I can do this right?  I mean this required screwdrivers, nail guns and a power drill.  Well, I have a secret weapon...........

 Yep, that's my hubs who can fix or repair just about anything!  Best thing is, he likes to help with things like this and has a way better eye for detail than I do.  I did do a few staples with the gun just so I could say I've used a staple gun, but most of the work I can't take credit for.

Here's the final project.  A new, clean chair pad.  Not to exciting, but not dirty either!  The whole project cost us less than $20 which was exciting though!

First day of preschool- Take 2

We're back at Preschool on Mondays at our house!  I love teaching this age.  I love how learning is fun and they love to learn!  Like most preschools, we began with a lesson in APPLES.  I've added and changed a few things from last year but have the same little cuties. 

 I had to take a 'first day' picture of  course

 

And if you make them take a nice picture, chances are they are going to make you take a silly picture too.....

      

One thing I have added this year, is writing numbers.  We started with good ol' #1 today...nice and easy for even little Emma to do on her own.  I found a little poem that says "Straight line down and then you're done, that's the way we make a ONE"  

So here is their own 'Ones" on their dry erase boards..............

Our story to go with our Apple theme was "Ten Apples Up on Top"  We talked about how silly and hard it would be to walk around with 10 apple on our head.  We got out an apple and tried to walk while balancing just one apple on our head.    Not easy to do!

And then of course an apple snack.  Apples with Peanut butter and apple juice.  We talked about the different parts of the apple and cut it open to find the seeds.

 Then this fun little craft.  I could only take an 'after' picture because my hands were covered in red paint 'during'.  It says "How many apples up on top?"  We glued a picture of them at the bottom of the paper and then stamped an apple in red paint and counted how many apples we could put on top of our picture.  Note:  Apple stamping works much better if you can actually cut the apple perfectly straight.....otherwise your stamps turn out funky like ours :(

 

Then some letter and number tracing.  On a piece of paper I wrote a "1" and "one" and on the other side an "A" and "a".  Slip it inside a sheet protector and voila an instant traceable dry erase page.

 That's all for today.  We will be doing a few more apple things next week too :)

A lesson in peace

We've been going over the fruits of the spirit for our preschool lessons and this week we are on 'peace.'  I unfortunately had completely forgotten to get out my camera for our past two lessons on 'love' and 'joy' and therefore did not blog those lessons.  I'm a very sub-par blogger, I know.

So what is peace?  And how on earth do you teach that to a preschooler/toddler?!  It certainly was not easy, as I realized I really didn't know much about peace myself. But if anything, they now have another powerful heart changing word added to their vocabulary, that they do know comes from Jesus.

Peace to me, used to be those things in life that just felt good and brought me relaxation and no worries.  Like a nice hot bubble bath, a quiet, clean house, a back massage, etc.  And although those things are peaceful, they eventually end!  The bath will get cold and at some point you have to get out, the kids will wake up from nap and it will no longer be quiet, nor clean, the massage has to end at some point or you will go bankrupt!  True peace comes only from Jesus.  It's nothing you can buy and it's nothing you can earn....you can only receive it from our gracious God.  And the best part is that it never goes away even through the trials and junk that this life brings us.

I explained the best I could that peace is freedom from worries.  And the only reason we can have peace is because Jesus is our peace.  He died to take away our worries and anxieties so we could rest in him.  So their verse for his week is "For he himself is our peace" Eph 2:14

We read the story about Jesus and the storm and acted it out.  I don't have pictures for this because it's really hard to teach and take pictures to share!  The kids each got two blue streamers (water) and we pretended to get on a boat.  When Jesus fell asleep they waved their streamers all around like it was storming and we all FREAKED OUT.  "What are we going to do!  We are going to die!  Jesus wake up!" And when we woke Jesus up he said "PEACE" and the storm stopped.

Now, I don't think they were able to make the connection that Jesus give us peace in our 'storms' in life, because kids are very literal and a storm to them is thunder, lightning, and rain and that's it.  But it sure connected in my heart and was much needed when this happened soon after the lesson:

Yep, it is still possible to have peace when an expensive vase gets knocked over and shatters on the floor.  Peace (and happiness for that matter) afterall, cannot be bought, right? 

 

 

 

 

I found the idea for this craft here.  We made peace candles.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this craft or not, because candles don't really have anything to do with  true peace (more so peacefulness I guess) but I liked that it is something we could put up in the house and we can all see that word PEACE as we go throughout our day.  So here's what we did.  We colored a piece of white tissue paper.  I put a cross and the word Peace on first and then they drew pictures around it.

I wrapped their picture around a white pillar candle and then wrapped the candle in wax paper

We got out the blow dryer and blasted the candle on high heat.  This caused the ink from the marker to melt into the candle.

Next, we took off the wax paper and voila....a peace candle made just by them!

So if you're looking for Peace, don't go to Target they don't sell it (seriously, I've looked).  And don't go to the library, you can't check it out.  If you want true peace look to Jesus and accept him as the one that died for you.

Life on Wednesdays

This is life at my house on Wednesdays when I get the opportunity to share life with 2 additional sweet children.  And although I am outnumbered 4 to 1 I love to see the sweet friendships forming between these 4 precious kiddos!  This blogpost is well overdue......so much in fact that one of them doesn't come anymore now that it's summer time.  But here's a look back at the past few Wednesdays......

Sand is a curious thing for little Ella.  She doesn't love to play in it, but more likes to watch sand dump out of things when she picks them  up :)

Fish and bugs in the sensory table.  too eat or not to eat????? hmmm

Tessa hard at work checking her email.  One of her FAVORITE toys at my house!

Lunch time!  2 chairs, one booster seat, one high chair and a really messy floor....

the girls appearing as though they take turns niceley ;)

My fav pic!  All the girls figuring out how to put their bubble wands in the bubble container.

Can't forget about Blake.  He's just teaching Tessa how to hopscotch while wearing rainboots ;)

Bubbles and rainboots.......lol

Tessa and "buddy" checking out the bubble machine :)  She LOVES going outside!

Emma watching the bubbles

Love this sweet little face!

Ella checking out the bubble machine, not quite sure what she thinks.  But we do now know that bubbles inside are not okay for Ella.  Bubbles outside however are ok. 

A Rain Lesson

Our lesson today focused on 'rain'. We talked about Spring weather and why the rain is important.




For Craft, we made fingerprint rain drops (these kids love to paint!) and added an umbrella for the finishing touch.

Can't say I had anything exciting for snack time unless you think graham crackers are exciting. We did have an exciting Science experiment though......

We talked about the water cycle. I found a simple picture showing the water cycle here. I didn't go into depth obviously, but they did learn the word 'evaporate'

Then we made it rain up in here.......

We used cottonballs (clouds) to soak up the ground water. The kids then squeezed their cloud to see the water come back out. We repeated our own water cycle over, and over, and over, and over, until the clouds began finding other things to rain on...like the floor.

I don't have pictures of the worksheet activities we did, but you can find them here if interested. We did the letter lightning match and the dot to dot umbrella page. I love this website for finding worksheets to go along with our lessons!

Enjoy