Today we finally got started on our new "preschool" year with our new curriculum. I really don't want to call it preschool, but at least you know what I'm talking about! I had planned to start yesterday, but because of the previous night's storms, everyone (myself included) was tired and lacking energy/motivation.

Our first theme is apples. Today we talked about the parts of the apple. Please note that I don't get overly technical on anything we do. We keep it simple and basic.

We are also trying something new with our theme-related art projects. In the past, this has always been a large group activity with all the kids sitting down at once to work on these. For at least the time being, we will be changing this to a small group activity, which means only a couple kids at a time will be working on the project. Because of the current ages and abilities of the kids, I feel this will allow me to better help each individual child. It will also allow me to easily modify the project for each child's abilities. Sometimes in the past the kids have had to wait to begin the next step of the project, and this should eliminate some of that as well.

Today we made a paper plate apple. We left the one side of the plate white, and used our fingers to dab brown paint dots for the seeds. We then painted the other side of the plate red. It looks like the apple has been cut in half, and reinforces the parts of the apple. Once they were dried, I used brown yarn (stem) to hang them in our windows.