September is All About Apples: Pre-K Lessons to Enjoy at Home with Your Little One

When my son was a little guy, I really loved coming up with all sorts of different lessons for us to do together at home. Though he went to day school a few mornings a week, I stuck to a pretty strict schedule with him on his 'off days' for Pre-K at home. I had a lot of personal goals for him to meet before entering Kindergarten, so we spent a lot of time doing hands on learning activities together. Every month had its own theme, and he really enjoyed our crafts, the books we read, and the (dare I say it) math lessons!

Now that Beanie Boo is approaching Kindergarten, I'm working more than ever before, and thanks to COVID-19, she won't have the opportunity to go to her school for five days a week. She'll be there three mornings a week, and will be home with me the other two. Figuring out how to best supplement her education at home has been an added task for me, but keeping her busy, engaged, and learning those day she isn't at school is oh, so important.

We recently enjoyed a day of apple picking in the mountains, and it dawned on me that apples are usually a great back to school and month of September theme for kiddos. With lots of apples at home, I decided to incorporate those deliciously sweet and crisp beauties into educational tools at home. We've had a lot of fun learning with apples! Here are a few of the things we've been doing...

Apple Picking

For the first time ever, our family enjoyed a day of apple picking in the mountains of NC.

For us, the mountains are only a couple of hours away, so a quick trip for apples is an easy day trip.

We learned a lot about the many varieties of apples (a great lesson for both kids, ages 9 & 4), and learned a lot about the earth and science, as well. The best part? We made some awesome memories and came home with tons of apples, fresh off of the trees!

Apple Tree Craft

To continue our apple theme during the first week of September, we also enjoyed a two-fold craft and math lesson. I happened to have a large piece of brown craft foam and tons of colored pom poms- perfect for making our very own apple tree craft!

I drew an outline of a tree on the craft foam, and told Beanie that it would be our job to turn it into an apple tree, using green and red pom poms to fill the top portion of the tree. First, however, we would need to sort the pom poms by color.

Pom pom sorting by color

Using a muffin tin, Bean sorted the pom poms by color. After they were sorted, we went back and arranged them by size. We counted the pom poms, as well, and made note of how many we had of each color. This was a fun and simple (for me) math lesson to set up using items we already had at home. Beanie really enjoyed it, as well.

Time to fill in the tree!

Filling in the top of the tree was a lot of fun! We practiced using glue, keeping the colors inside of the lines, etc. Once this cute craft dried, we had a beautiful apple tree to enjoy looking at! This craft is proudly being displayed on the bulletin board in Beanie's room.

Apple Math + Snack Art

Snack time!

With so many apples at home, I had a great opportunity to continue the hands on learning fun for Bean. We headed into the kitchen together, where I peeled apples, and she cut the sliced into smaller pieces. We had so much fun slicing, cutting, stacking, counting (and eating) the fresh apples from the orchard!

When we were finished cutting the apples up, we enjoyed a creative snack with apples and raisins. Beanie used apple pieces and raisins to create a picture on a plate. She had lots of fun playing with her food, and the best part, of course, was being able to eat her snack!

Apple Car Activity & Snack

Another old favorite activity and snack using apples is to make a cute little apple car! This easy snack uses apples, peanut butter (or some other butter), yogurt melts, raisins, pretzels, marshmallows, etc. Your kiddos can create their own little cars and then eat them!

Grab directions for this cute Apple Car Activity & Snack.

I had forgotten how much fun it can be to plan out some of these lessons and how enjoyable they are to do alongside your child. We still have a lot of apples, so I can only imagine that we'll be eating, building, and crafting with apples all month long!

Look for more apple activity ideas over on Pinterest & keep checking back here on Mommy's Block Party to see how we're having fun with learning here at home!

Wishing you a bright, sunflowery & crisp September!