I'm such a hypocrite!

Right after I get done posting about how I've been soooo unmotivated to sew and have been using my hot glue gun for everything, I go and do this:

I guess it's a matter of priorities. 'Cause this little sewing project is for my kiddos. This was a great idea given to me by my friend Lori. It's a hands-on activity used to reinforce/introduce letter identification.

I made 30 apples. The materials needed were 10 sheets of red felt (you can find the felt at WalMart or any craft store), 1 sheet of green felt, 1 sheet of brown felt, a thing of foam alphabet letters, and approximately 1 lb of pinto beans. You'll also need a permanent marker, scissors, and either a sewing machine or glue (either fabric glue or hot glue.)

I cut patterns onto a piece of cardstock. I made the patterns look like an apple, an apple stem, and a leaf:

Then I traced the apple pattern onto the red felt using a permanent marker. I fit 6 apples per piece of red felt. Then I traced the leaf onto the green felt and the stem onto the brown felt. I fit all 30 leaves and stems on one sheet each. Sorry I don't have a pic for this part.

Next, I recruited my wonderful hubby, Brad, and we cut all the apples, stems, and leaves out. By the time we finished, it was 11:30pm so then we went to bed.

I tried gluing an apple together with fabric glue, but it was very stiff after it dried. So, I pulled out her:

I did use glue to affix the stem and then the leaf to the back portion of the apple (you will use two apple pieces per one whole apple.) That looked like this:

I then took the above piece (the one with the stem and leaf) and another apple piece and laid them on top of one another so that the stem/leaf were between the two apples. Then I sewed this together until I had about 1 1/2 inches left unsewn. Without removing the apple or even lifting the presser foot, I carefully scooped some beans into the hole. Don't ask how much, because I just filled it until it "felt" right. Then I sewed up the hole. Then it looked like this:

Then you decide which letters you want to introduce/reinforce. Once decided, pick out the letters from your foam letters. Today, we did letters C, D, E, and F.

Stick the foam letters on your apples like this:

I did 6 apples of each letter. When you move on to another letter, you simply remove these and adhere your new letters. I thought it would be nice to make felt letters and use velcro to attach them so that you do not have to keep buying foamies. I'll probably end up doing that since I plan on using these frequently.

Then get the same number of baskets as you have letters. For example, we did 4 letters today, so I rounded up 4 baskets (make sure they are a bigger size, nothing small here) and adhered one foam letter to each basket. You will have one basket for each letter.

Then your child tosses the apple into the basket with the correct letter. For instance, when Ian picked up an apple with a "C" on it, he tossed it into the basket with the "C" on it. I also had him say the sound that the letter made before tossing it, or I'd have him think of word that started with that particular letter.

You could also put pictures on the baskets instead of the letters. For instance, for the letter "C" you could put a picture of a cat or a dog for the letter "D". You could also do this activity for number identification.

After we did this, I decided to tie this activity in with math. I had the kids go to their bedrooms, and then I hid apples throughout the house. The kids found the apples, and then we charted how many of each letter apple they found.

You can see above how I made the chart. Then I provided the kids with numeral stickers and small, round fall stickers. Ian was independent in this activity, but Lily, of course, needed help. I had them put their apples into piles according to the letter on the apples. They then counted how many of each letter they had. Then they had to find the correct numeral sticker, place it on the chart, and then count out that many fall stickers and put those in the corresponding column. This was a great introduction to charts and graphs. We then compared and used the terms "more than", "less than", "the same".

The kids absolutely loved both activities. This was worth the time and effort put in to it because I plan on using this activity frequently. It was completely worth pulling out my Singer!

Until next time,

Amber