Week 1: Apples
Hello Spoede Pre-K Families, We have had a fun week learning about apples! Fall is just beginning and we are enjoying the cooler weather and can't wait for the leaves to start changing. We would love to have some apple donations for next week that we can use for sorting, measuring, tasting, painting, and apple-volcanoes, to name a few things. If you want to donate some apples, please send in 2-3 apples (or as many as you want). It would be great if when choosing apples you would pick various sizes and colors, if possible. I will be purchasing some apples for the tasting test so the ones you donate can be any variety of apple. I will also send home a permission slip to allow your child to be a part of our apple tasting event, which will probably be on Friday. I will use a red, yellow and green apple, as well as a small cup of apple cider and apple juice. We will then graph which apple was each students favorite through the taste test. Thank you in advance for any apple donation.
Heres what we did this week.
Monday - We started out with our weekly share about what we did over the weekend. Students are getting more comfortable speaking in front of the whole class every week. We also went over our class jobs and those expectations involved with the jobs. We did a math apple seed counting activity. (No pictures.) We added apples into bushels using our finger prints and had to put the correct number in each bushel! We made an tissue paper apple using glue sticks and tissue paper pieces. We also dot painted an A is for Apple page and traced the letters and words as well.
Tuesday- We used cue tips to carefully fill each circle on a printed apple. This activity takes fine motor strength, eye to hand coordination, patience, stamina and is a great way to practice using a pincer grip. We did an Apple Puzzle name cutting activity where we had to cut our name apart and glue it back together! We did some introductory pages of coloring and tracing lines in our Handwriting Workbooks. In the afternoon, we enjoyed Music class with Ms. Li. We learned a 10 little fingers song and were able to work with partners and small groups to practice the movements. We also did movements and sang to a Movin' Groovin' song. The movements included walking, jumping, frog-hopping, stomping, tip-toeing, galloping, crawling and resting.
Wednesday- We made patterns with colored apple stickers on sentence strips, ABAB patterns or ABCABC patterns. We also sponge painted fall trees with clothes pins holding the sponges. Handwriting workbooks were available for those who did not get a chance to complete their pages on Tuesday.
Thursday - We learned how to make the letter "E". Big line down, back to the top and three little lines! We first practiced using the Handwriting without Tears wooden pieces for that concrete, hands on practice. Then we worked in our Handwriting Workbooks on the Letter E. We added apples to our sponge painted trees using wine corks. We read the story !0 Apples on top. Then we completed an activity of graphing numbers of apples on top of different animals. Each animal had a number in their box and the students had to make that many apples on top of each animals heads. We used markers because it was a pretty tricky math matching activity. The numbers were out of order so they had to recognize the numberal and then make that many circles. Pretty challenging but the students did a great job and had teacher scaffolding if needed. We started a project with marble painting an apple as a choice activity at the end of centers.
Friday - We made our Letter Ee books for morning work. We enjoyed art with Ms. Tara. We sponge painted a fall background with orange and yellow. Then we added green grass with fork prints. Finally, we made leaf prints on a different paper that we will cut out next week and attach to our fall background. We continued with marble painting an apple and used the time to finish projects that were not completed throughout the week.
Week 2 of our Apple unit we will learn about the magic of what is hidden in the Apple House, measure and sort with apples, make apple prints using apples, make apple-volcanos and other fun apple activities.
Curriculum Updates: What we are working on
Second Steps Social-Emotional Skills for Early Learning
This weeks concept: Self-talk. Self-talk is talking to yourself in a quiet voice or inside your head. Self-talk helps you focus and pay attention. Self-talk is an important tool children can use to help them listen, focus and pay attention. Most young children can talk to themselves much of the time as they are doing activities or playing with friends. Over time, children typically internalize self-talk and no longer speak aloud to themselves.
Letter and sound of the Week: The letter Ee, /Ee/. Aa for Apple was a bonus letter but we will revisit in more detail later.
Phonemic Awareness Skills we are currently working on:
Rhyme: Rhyming Repetition
Initial Phoneme Isolation: Isolating the initial phoneme (sounds) in spoken words.
Blending: Blending individual words into compound words (using hand motion for blending suggested by the lessons.)
Phoneme Isolation: Final or Medial Sounds: Isolating final phonemes (sounds) in spoken words (with hand motions for final sounds and medial sounds suggested in the lessons.
Segmenting: Segmenting compound words into individual words (with suggested hand motion for segmenting included in the lessons.)
Alphabet Knowledge: Letter cards for the letters A to Z are used to provide students with practice to build automaticity with letter names and sounds. This is the only part of the lesson where students see print. (We also do an alphabet Chant (A, Apple, /a/; B, bike. /b/...)
Language Awareness: Building Word Awareness with sentences. The students repeat the sentences and we count the number of words.
Upcoming Reminders
Fri. Oct. 23. No School for Students and Teachers
Dance-a-Thon 2026 |
Our annual fundraising event is officially underway! Lots of information is available via SSA’s MKT page, and our annual Spirit Week is coming next week, too! A BIG "thank you" to all who have already donated and offered their support. In order to donate, have access to the "Buzz Book" family directory, and receive special announcements about class parties, events, and volunteer opportunities, make sure you've updated your family's information and teacher for this school year -- via the link below: |
SSA - Membership Toolkit
Register & Update Your Information Today! |
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We hope you enjoy the pictures from this week.
Monday
Monday morning share about weekend events
Matching number of finger painted apples to numerals.
Cut apart Apple Puzzle Names
Friday
