How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World {FI♥AR}

August 22nd ~ September 2nd

The title of the book says it all. This is a fun Five in a Row selection.

had planned to row this over FIVE weeks, focusing on one "day" per week (so we have a crazy amount of activities), but we rowed it in 2 weeks.   (I am sharing by subject instead of by day as I usually do, so it is not really in order.) Here is what we did:

Social Studies: Geography ~  Apple Pie Sensory Basket and Story Disks, Apple Pie Matching Game

How to Make an Apple Pie Sensory Basket ~

I had so much fun putting this together and it smells just like apple pie. :)


Contents:
  • Apple Pie "Ingredients"
    • Wheat berries
    • Apple pie spice mix (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice)
    • Wheat stalks
    • Cinnamon sticks
    • Sugar cane "sticks" (bamboo)
    • Salt shaker (salt with a cotton ball on top) 
    • Play apples
    • Whole allspice
  • Mortar and pestle for grinding spices
  • Down on the Farm Toob ~ barn, tractor, hay bale, cow and chicken, toy world 
  • Homemade chicken feed bag
  • Button set (boy and girl, apple, world, pencil)
  • Measuring cups for measuring "ingredients" and scooping
  • Fabric map of the world for placing under the basket during play!




They were so excited to see the basket! (I kept it a surprise.) 

Dylan read the story to Mali and Elli and helped them find the countries where each ingredient came from and placed them on the fabric map. 


Have you ever sat and played with a sensory tub with your little ones? 


It feels so relaxing {and smells wonderful}.  I sat down with Bo and played with Eliana right after I took this picture. I ran my hands through the wheat and let Bo do the same. He loved it, too. 

World Puzzle

"We took _______ to _______ to get _______." 

Apple Pie Match



Apple Pie Match Meets Education Cubes!

I trimmed the cards to fit on the Blank Insert Cards for. . .  
Apple Pie Roll and Match! 



How we played: 
  1. Roll the colored apple Education Cube first to determine which cube we will match.
  2. Roll the number apple Education Cube to determine the number of rolls/tries we get. 
  3. Roll all three Apple Pie Cubes. Continue to roll any unmatched cubes until you get a match or run out of tries.
To score: if you do not get a match after your rolled number of tries, you get one point. If you roll a perfect roll, you take away a point. The object is to have no points, so the one with the least points wins. (Dylan made up the scoring rules). :)

For example, in the game below, Dylan rolled a yellow apple so the yellow Apple Pie Cube is the one we matched. He rolled a 6 on the green apple cube so he gets six tries to match up the Apple Pie Cubes. He then rolls the green and red Apple Pie Cubes until he gets a match or runs out of tries. Notice we have the book open to help us! 



There are several ways you could play this game ~ this just happened to be one way that we played. (We tried several ways). Fun! I think this would be a fun way to review this book if we ever do a review week.

Language Arts: Humor, Repetition, Vocabulary, Silly Sentences, Roll a Sentence

While reading the story, I asked Malachi what was humorous about the story. He said that making an apple pie is simple and requires only a few ingredients, but because the market is closed the girl has to travel all over the world to get the ingredients. :) Then I followed the suggestions in the manual for the rest of the lesson on humor in writing. This was a neat lesson.

Go-alongs:



We changed it to ferris wheels because Malachi didn't know what a roller coaster was,
{as evidenced by the fact that he drew a ferris wheel instead.} ;-) 

Roll a Sentence {using apple colored photo blocks}



Notice the roller coaster. ;-) 
It happened that he rolled a roller coaster, so this time he knew what it was. :)

Apple Alphabet Match

I had Malachi put them in alphabetical order. 

Apple Pre-Writing Practice

Letter A Play Dough Mat



Science:  Apples, Apple Tree Life Cycle, Seasonal Apple Tree Study, Salt and Evaporation, Fresh Foods for Health & Where Milk Comes From

First, I had Malachi find the variety of his apple on the chart {Red Delicious}. 


Then we wedged it and did a taste test. (He had to tell me whether it was sweet or sour). 

Deciding if it is sweet or sour. 
He had a hard time deciding. He thought the skin was sour, but the flesh was sweet. (He marked sour on his chart). We used the core for our Apple Math (below). 

Then, I cut another apple in half and had Malachi label the parts of the apple. (We used the apple halves to make apple prints). 



While Mali worked on that, Elli worked across from him:

Using the card to check her work ~ she had one mistake.
Life Cycle of an Apple 
Salt and Evaporation Experiment {from the manual}
Drawing his conclusion

I had several books on where milk comes from in our Book Basket. This is the part where I wish we could have visited a farm to see a cow being milked! Instead we read the books and did The Facts About Milk mini book from HSS.

Nature Study:

We have been doing an informal seasonal tree study of an apple tree. 

Spring

Early Summer
Late Summer
(And by informal, I mean that we have been noticing details, spying apple trees when out and about, talking about what we see, etc.)

Art: Humor in Art, Street Scenes, Pretend Play

Humor in art was another fun lesson from the manual. They also used the street scene with their sensory basket play. 
Street Scene from HSS.

I left the Make & Serve Apple Pie Set out for free play our first week and was served up several slices of pie. I think this set is so cute.

Make & Serve Apple Pie Set for pretend play.

The apple is velcro and can be "sliced." :)
I also had play dough available for them to play with. I saved stems from apples for them to make play dough apples with.  
This play dough is my favorite ~ it smells so good.  (We used the Apple Pie Play Dough to make our letter Aa above.)

Math: Liquid and Dry Measures, Apple Math

Malachi loved this game. He has such a neat personality and makes every game a "race." It is so fun to watch him play.  

While he played this, Eliana measured with apples. 

How Many Apples Tall?

I dug out the sandpaper letters I made to help her remember how to form the numbers.

Apple Math

We counted the seeds in Malachi's apple. 

9 seeds in his apple!

"Just Ripe" Apple Math

While Mali was doing these activities, Elli was apple printing away. I had Mali print on his math page.

After his apple dried, he colored in nine seeds. 

I gave him an introduction to odd and even numbers and he caught on to the concept easily.


Apple Patterning and Counting Practice 



Then she did a cut and paste activity and I reviewed the Signing Time cards I pulled that related to the book.

Elli signing apple and working on her apple cut and paste {and nibbling on her sugar cane}

A is for Apple Cut & Paste

Transportation Math



I didn't have to tell Malachi how to play. He is so "game" oriented that he had no trouble coming up with ways to play. 


He rolled the apples to determine which colored marker to use and which apple to cover, then counted apples (and counted to see which color won).


Rolling the cube. :)
Then he played the Red Apple Grid game two ways. 



I really just let him play how he wanted. He picked the game up several times and didn't want me to put it away. :) Thanks, Jenn! Education Cubes rock {and roll}! :D

We also did the How to Make and Apple Pie and Do Some Math lapbook activity from HSS.

Book Basket:

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World Book Basket!
The book basket was nice addition to our afternoons when the boys finished their school. It was nice to just have the books ready to go and the kids brought the books of their choice to me to read.

Practical Life:

{Apple} Pencil Sharpening

This was a little too hard for her. 

Salt Pouring {inspired by Mari-Ann's Sand Pouring}

She loved this!

FIAR Recipe: Homemade Butter and Apple Pie

Homemade Butter {and buttermilk}

Apple Pie!
We followed the apple pie recipe in the book. . . and ate it plain, just like in the book!  Note: The last time we made this same pie (A is for Apple), it was the best apple pie. This time, though, we didn't use the Apple Mate (apple peeler, corer and slicer) so our apples were thicker and did not cook all the way through. The crust did and it was still edible, so not a total flop, but not the best pie. 

So, we decided to have an apple tasting party and make a new pie ~ a dutch apple pie this time with a crumb topping. We took a field trip to the market {which happened to be open and having their grand re-opening) to see all the varieties of apples available locally. We bought one of each, except the kind we used above for science (Red Delicious).


And this time we had it with vanilla ice cream. The crumb topping was amazing! (and the apples were cooked!). 

And well, I am apple'd out. However, I am in the groove for making pie (several kinds of pie!). In fact, I am making 3 pies tomorrow. . . for. . .(can you guess?) :D

I'm so not following my "plan," he he. But, I couldn't resist. You'll see why next time!

Delightful Links:
Life Cycle of an Apple @ Montessori for Everyone
Transportation Pack @ Homeschool Creations


Phew! I do my best to include links whenever possible. If I missed you, please contact me personally and I will make sure to include you. :)