Welcome to the classroom! We love to play, learn, create and sing together in the classroom, and we’d like to encourage our classroom friends to keep learning and playing at home once Caitie’s Classroom is over. We’ve put together activities and resources so the playing, learning, creating and singing doesn’t have to stop once Caitie says goodbye. Try these out at home or in your own classroom, and have fun!
This episode is all about fruits! Fruits are the part of a plant where the seeds are – sometimes they are a flower, and sometimes they are a yummy thing we can eat. Fruits are a great way to practice colors – there are so many different colored fruits! In the classroom we also practice numbers by counting as we pick berries, and our ABCs in a fun fruit themed version of our ABCs game. We visit an apple orchard, and explore stamps. Read on for tips on how to recreate these activities at home and for ideas to expand on them for more learning.
Fruits & Colors
Fruits are a great way to practice colors – there are so many different colors of fruits!
- When you are grocery shopping, point to the different produce and name colors. Encourage your little one to do the same.
- You can also hunt for certain colors when grocery shopping. Before you go into the store, pick a color with your little one and have them point out all the produce they see that is that color.
- When you are cooking, point out the colors of the produce you are cooking with, or ask your little one what color it is.
- You can also use fruit and vegetable flashcards or images – show your little one the image and ask what color it is. Try sorting the cards into piles by color, too!
Fruits & Seeds
A fruit by definition is the part of the plant with the seeds. Fruits will have seeds inside of them (some genetically modified fruits have very small or no seeds, like bananas) and the seeds can grow into new plants to make more fruit!
- Explore the seeds of fruits. Take a look at them. You can even try planting some of them. Some seeds from the fruits from the grocery store can be cleaned, dried and planted to grow new plants, like lemons, apples, and peaches. They will take many years to grow fruit, but you can see the plant start to grow once it sprouts. With an avocado, you can place the bottom part of the pit in some water where the roots of the new plant will start to grow. After eight weeks or so, you might see the start of a new plant come out of the top!
- Practice counting by counting the seeds inside of a fruit. You can also try this appleseed activity. Roll a dice and place that many “seeds” onto the apple. You can use dried beans or any small item to be the seeds.
Pretend to Pick Berries!
Picked some berries, picked some berries that were growing in the sun! Then I washed them, and I ate them, and I picked another one! Pretending to pick berries is a great way to practice counting and colors.
- Cut out a bush shape from a piece of green construction paper, or leave the paper whole. This will be your berry bush! Place a bunch of pom poms onto the bush. The pom poms are your berries! Pick a number or roll the dice to select a number, and pick that many berries off of the bush and put them into a basket or bowl.
- Put a bunch of different colored pom poms into a bowl. Have your little one sort the pom poms, or berries, into different piles. The red pom poms can be raspberries or strawberries. Blue pom poms can be blueberries. Purple pom poms can be blackberries. You can even try making up new names for berries that are different colors! Then count how many berries you have of each. To make the sorting part a bit more challenging for fine motor skills, have them use child friendly tweezers or tongs.
- Try using real berries, pretending to pick them and then count them as you eat!
Apple Picking!
In this episode we visit an apple orchard and try apple picking, but you can easily recreate this activity at home, too.
- Make an apple tree, or use this printable. Use red, green or yellow pom poms for the apples. Guess how many apples might grow or fit on the tree. Once you have your guess, fill the tree up til it is filled with pom poms. See how close you were to your guess. Then, start picking! Roll a dice or select a number and pick that many apples from the tree and put them in your basket or bowl. You can even have a few different apple trees with different colored apples, and select different colored apples to pick for some color practice.
- Watch our older live episode of Caitie’s Classroom all about apples for more apple fun!
- If you can, visit an apple orchard and pick some apples of your own. Maybe there is someone in the neighborhood who has an apple tree and would allow you to pick a few apples. Talk about the colors of the apples and count as you go!
ABC Apples & Bananas
In this episode we have a new version of our classic classroom ABC game, this time with apples and bananas for a silly twist.
- Encourage your little ones to follow along and make the movements with their bodies.
- You can try it at home using ABC flashcards. Print the flashcards and place them on the wall in order, or write the letters of the alphabet on a board. Start by replacing one or two of the letters with an apple or banana by covering up the letter with a picture of the fruit. That way you can change the position of the fruit easily and keep the game going. Then sing the ABC song, and point the letters as you go. When you reach a piece of fruit, say the fruit and make the gesture. Change the position of the fruit or add in more pieces of fruit each time you sing.
Apples & Bananas
This is a great song to practice vowel sounds! Try making the different vowels sounds using your little one’s name. For example, using the name Greta you can say Gretay, Gretoo, Greti, Greto, and Gretee.
For more Apples & Banana fun, check out our animated music video of the song, and our episode of Sing Along With Tobee.
Stamping Fruit
Fruits can make great stamps, and we can make stamps that look like fruits in lots of different ways!
- Try cutting pieces of fruit in half, dipping them in some paint, and stamping them onto a piece of white paper. Stamp big and small pieces, and use different colors. See what they look like. Can you see the seeds, or paint them in?
- You can also make stamps that look like fruits. In this episode we use corks, sponges, pom poms, pipe cleaners and old yogurt containers. Pom poms and corks make great circles for circular fruits, like oranges and grapes. Try attaching a clothespin to larger pom poms to make a handle. Sponges can be cut into any shape, like a banana. They can also be used to make some nice leaves or stems for your fruit. Pipe cleaners can be rolling into any shape, like an apple, and glued onto the bottom of a clean yogurt container to be used as a stamp.
- Try stamping apples in this apple tree stamp craft!
We hope you have fun singing, playing, learning, and creating! We love to see photos of our friends having fun in the classroom and of their wonderful creations! You can share them with us through social media or by sending us an email to hello@SuperSimpleOnline.com.
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