Apples and Pumpkins Galore!

I love apples.  I don't know if it's because I've always wanted teach, or if it's their taste, my brother's name being Jonathan... I don't know.  But if you ask me, they are a very friendly fruit.  So, our topic was apples and pumpkins.  I'm telling you, give me a theme, and watch me run with it.

So, needless to say, we had apples for snacks one day.  Then, I found this adorable apple craft.

You take a paper plate, then draw lines for the children to cut on, that will make it look like a core.  Then, the children paint the (ridged) top of the paper plate red (although, making some of them green and yellow would also be very cute).  Then, I had them draw seeds in the middle, and added a green stem (that they also painted) to it.

Et voila:

Next, we made pumpkins out of strips of paper.  I lined orange construction paper (1 inch lines), and different lengths.  Again, I had my kiddos cut on the lines.  (I also had them cut one green one, for the stem.)  Then, they cut them into different lengths.  You need 2 of every length.  Then, you hold them together, shortest ones in the middle, longer ones next, and finally the longest ones.  Then they "helped me" staple them together at one end, then I inserted the green one at the top, and stapled them at that end.  Easy as pie!  Pumpkin pie, that is!

On another day we actually made pumpkin pie.  Yes, we made it.  I bought a pie crust, a can of pumpkin pie, a can of evaporated milk, and eggs.  I already had the spices at home.  So one day, during circle time, we went into the kitchen and made pie.  I let the kids put in all the ingredients.  Even the eggs.  It was a good thing that I brought an extra one, because as I learned, kids like to squeeze eggs, which has a great squirting effect, but leaves you missing some egg.  The kids had a wonderful time.  They also all got a chance to hold my hand held mixer, which was a very exciting experience.  We put our pie in the oven, and waited.  That was the hardest part.  We finally went back into the kitchen, checked on our pie, and......... it was perfect.

Here's the picture to prove it:

And, to top it off, the kids went home with a conversation starter stamp.

When the principle went by, they kids were saying "cutie pie", "cutie pie".  She was like "Oh, how sweet, thank you!" Then I showed her that they were just trying to show her their stamp.  That sure burst her bubble... :)