During Apple week this fall, the early childhood students are learning all about apples. They investigated different varieties of apples and are actually learning the names of the different apples.
This art project involved torn paper. Each student was allowed to choose the kind of apple he/she wanted to create. Red paper was for the red delicious apples. Green paper was for the Granny Smith apples. Yellow paper was for the yellow delicious apples.
After they chose which color apple they wanted to make, they tore the colored paper into tiny squares and random pieces. Then they covered the apple shape drawn on white paper with glue, lots of glue. Everywhere they put glue, they had to place a torn piece of colored paper.
My preschool class went on a nature walk to collect fall leaves. They love outside nature walks. They love collecting things from nature. We brought the leaves inside the classroom and dumped them out on the table to investigate.
We measured the leaves. We looked at the differences in the leaves. We counted the leaves. We compared the sizes of the leaves. We looked at the colors of the leaves. We put the leaves in categories by size, shape, and color. We noted how brittle some of the leaves were and how easily they crumple and crunch.
We talked about why leaves change color and noted that they don’t really change colors. Their true colors only show more because they aren’t able to get as much sun in the fall due to cooler temperatures and shorter times of daylight and sunlight.
We learned about gravity as the force that makes the leaves fall to the ground, just like the force that holds us down to the ground. We recalled our discussion of gravity from space week when we talked about astronauts having no gravity in space and on the moon.
There were many subject areas included in this activity of leaf investigation: math, science, comparing, colors.
Fall is a great time of year to experiment with scents. Preschool students love to paint. Why not allow them to paint with scented paint?
We used orange paint because it is a common color for the fall season. We added some common scents to the bowls of paint. We added cinnamon to one bowl, all spice to one bowl, and apple cider mix to another bowl. 
The students did free art painting while they smelled the fall-scented paints. Even after the paintings dried, the scents were still there on the paper two days later.
The preschool students painted their own fall trees using their handprints and their armprints. This project was a messy one but turned out well.
The students put their entire forearms in a pan of brown paint then pressed their arms on the paper. This is the tree trunk.
Then they pressed their hands in the paint and put handprints on the top of the armprint. Then they used paintbrushes in different colors of paint for the fall leaves. Some leaves on the branches of the tree and some falling down to the side of the tree trunk.
My early childhood 3-4 year olds practiced their fine motor skills and exercised their young fingers by getting some button and snap practice. We have these boards for them to practice fitting the buttons in the buttonholes and snapping the two sides of the snaps together. There are also buckles like buckling their belts and shoes and zippers like zipping their jackets.
This fine motor practice and finger exercises strengthen their finger muscles for pre-writing skills.
