In the Children's Room: Theme Thursday: Apple of My Eye

Instead of a traditional "Yay! It's Fall" story time, I decided to focus on the best part of fall: Apples. And of course, applesauce.

Song: Good Morning Dear Earth

Song/Flannel: 5 Little Apples

(I learned this as a finger play, but one of my two year olds and her grandma taught me a song version the week before and I like it so much better that way)

Way up high in the apple tree,

5 red apples smiled down at me,

I shook that tree as hard as I could,

Down came an apple,

Mmmm, Mmmm, Good!

Book: Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Baby Bounce: Criss Cross, Line, Line

Flannel: Making Applesauce

Book: The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

Song: Shake Your Sillies Out

Song: Grand Old Duke of York

Song: The More We Get Together

Book: Apple Trees by Robin Nelson

Poem: Apples and Honey

(I wrote a quick poem about the Rosh Hashanah tradition of dipping apples into honey. And then I debated for a loooooong time about how culturally inappropriate it was for me, the most gentile of gentiles, to write a Rosh Hashanah poem and use it in story time. I ended up going for it.)

Apples, apples, honey, honey,

together in my mouth,

yummy, yummy

Take the apple from the tree,

Steal the honey from the bees,

Chop the apple, dip it in,

That's the way the new year begins,

A hope for sweetness in the year,

And it all begins with us, right here!

Song: Turn Around

Make and Take Craft: Apple Prints

Supplies:

-apples

-paint

-paper

-knife

-sponges

Process: I soaked sponges in paint and then used them like stamp pads for the apples. The mess factor was way lower than I was expecting and it helped the kids get the right amount of paint on the apple each time. Cut the apples before story time, straight down the middle for the traditional print or in round slices to get the star center. After story time I passed out paper and let the kids go crazy, stamping away. Everyone LOVED the statisfying thunk of the heavy apple on the paper and it was cool to see how many different end results could come out of the very same beginnings. For 16 kids we used 4 apples.