Activity Idea: An Apple A Day...

Objective:

To introduce children to a variety of apples using their senses.

Procedure:

Display and label 5 or 6 different types of apples, with samples available for each.

Provide slips of paper for children to jot down words to describe each apple.

(Perhaps provide a list of descriptive words that the children can learn in order to accomplish this task)

Have a ballot box at the end of the display for the children to vote for their favorite apple.

Follow up activities:

1. Blindfold guessing game--taste and identify.

2. Have the children chart the results.

3. Have the children prepare a campaign advertisement for their favorite apple.

a.) could be a radio ad.

b.) a magazine ad.

c.) a TV ad.

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Linking the standards:

Note that there are many standards being addressed by the follow up activities.

Science Standard 3.2 B

Describe objects in the world using the five senses.

- Recognize observational descriptors from each of the five senses

- Use observation to develop a descriptive vocabulary

is addressed in the jotting down activity and in the blindfold guessing game.

Math Standard 2.6 B

Interpret, construct and draw conclusions from bar graphs, pictographs, tally charts and/or tables

is addressed in having the children chart the results.

Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening 1.2 D

Demonstrate a rich listening and speaking vocabulary, the ability to understand (receptive) and

use (expressive) words to acquire and convey meaning

is addressed in having the children prepare a campaign advertisement for their favorite apple.

Art Standard 9.1 K

Create works of art based on varied styles within all art forms

is addressed in having the children make a magazine advertisement.

Are SAC Relationships Worth the Time?

Daile's beautiful baby boy

My arms were full of groceries as I rushed out of the supermarket when I heard a tentative voice call out to me.

I swung around to see a young woman entering the store with a young baby secured tightly in her grocery cart.

"Daile!" I said.

She flashed a beaming smile and in that instant I was transported to 1994.

I remember Daile with her carefully braided hair, the graceful bowing of her violin and her soft spoken nature.  I had known her from her first grade to fifth grade and had seen her coaxed ever so gradually out of her shell.

After her fifth grade (and extended day) graduation, her family and I had kept in touch.

Years later I stood with other mothers taking picture of her and her friends before they went to prom.

Today Daile has finished college and is a young working mother herself.

She is a picture of happiness.

Tired happiness, she tells me, as she now tries to mentally check boxes and juggle priorities as an adult.

I could hear the pride and confidence in her voice as she tells me about life.

I interrupt her mid sentence to say: "Daile, when did you get to be all grown up?"

She laughed and and said, "I wish we could get together soon..."

As we went our separate ways I could not help but feel proud to have been a part of her growing up years.

I believe that somehow, the positive experiences she will provide for her son will be in part, due to the kind of environment we contributed to her childhood.

For myself  it is moments like that-- encounters with former children in my school-age care program-- that I realize that the twelve years that I devoted to my work there, was meaningful.

It is also just another validation that those school-age care relationships can and will last a lifetime if you treat the children in your program with respect and genuine care.

-Chesca Silva