Apples A to Z literally shared facts about apples from a to z. A small fox and his friends fill the fun illustrations with displays of what each page is discussing. Simple concepts like when the apple falls off the tree fruit forms to grafting branches from one kind of tree to another produce healthier trees. JDaniel was fascinated with grafting and how it works. I was impressed that Margaret McNamara found varieties of apples from a to z. I have never heard of the queen cox or the Xavier de Bavay much less the za ber gau.
This book does another amazing thing. It delivers information for each letter of the alphabet that doesn’t seem forced or trite. Each word selected for each letter is interesting and adds to the trip through the alphabet. It does this with humor, fun facts and great pictures by Jake Parker.
How did we explore this book?
Math Activities for Preschoolers
Writing Number Activity
Apple Addition
You will notice that I put a plus sign in the core of the apple. I want to be able to use the mats for subtraction too. Leaving the brown paper area of the empty and writing it on the apple when it was in the plastic sleeve allowed me to write the function we were focusing on when we needed it.
When JDaniel had counted the button on both sides to find the sum, I had him place the number tracing card with the answer beside the work mat.
He did a great job of working with the counters and the concrete numbers. It is so important to hit more than one type of learning when working on concepts. I think these math mats do just that.