Tot School: Fall Theme - Day 3

Today was our last day of the Fall theme. I had so much fun sharing these lessons with Emma! She was in a much better mood today, so that made things so much easier and enjoyable.

We started the lesson as we usually do: dressed up in Fall colors, sang our Fall song, read our Fall books (which she paid a lot more attention to today). And, then we moved on to the activities! Today I focused our activities on apples (as Emma loves them and as they are a staple in Fall goodies).

While my mother-in-law was visiting, she bought Emma her first set of Play-Doh. Emma has dealt with Play-Doh before during nursery at church, but she was never into playing with it - she always just tried to eat it. It's been a while since she's come across Play-Doh, so I figured I would implement it in today's lesson and gauge how well she does with it. We made six "apples" by rolling the red Play-Doh into tiny balls (a talent Emma still needs to work on - the best she could do was a flat oval). Then I brought out a die and this printable counting mat that's shaped as a tree.

The point of the activity is to roll the die (which Emma got the hang of quickly) and then put that many apples on the tree. I'd have Emma roll the die again and we'd "pick" that number of apples off the tree. I'd clear the printable off and we'd repeat. This was the first time that I tried to have a structured counting lesson with Emma (she already knows how to count to two - sometimes three when she feels like it), but I feel like it was a bit too advanced for her. We'll try this again in a few months from now. But, she did have fun rolling the die and playing with the Play-Doh!

After she lost interest, we moved on to the next activity, which was "bobbing" for apples. Similar to washing the pumpkin earlier this week, I filled up the kitchen sink with water and threw in four apples to wash, but then I gave Emma a serving spoon to scoop them out and deposit it into a colander. Once I showed Emma what I wanted her to try, she took over and nailed it!

She had SO much fun doing this. About 80% of the time she scooped the apple up perfectly and put it in the colander. She enjoyed it so much, we did this for a few rounds. She dropped the apples a few times, so hopefully they don't end up too bruised!

We finished up right as Phil was getting home, so we surprised Emma with a field trip to Dave's Pumpkin Patch. We've never been before, so it was really a treat for everyone. Emma especially enjoyed playing in the corn box. I thought it was the perfect ending to our Fall-themed tot school week! 

So proud of how quickly my baby girl is picking up on things! Next week we'll start the first of two weeks on shapes! I have some pretty fun things planned for it!