Apple Week and a trip to Tehachapi

This week's theme was apples, once again with mixed results. I'm realizing that every week is going to be like this -- some good, some bad, some learning, some fun.

On Monday we read apple books, wrote the alphabet, and played this game (above) where I said things like "Put an apple under the tree... put an apple on top of the tree... put an apple between the trees." They liked that and were disappointed when we ran out of stickers.

Tuesday we worked with real apples. We lined them up, looked at them, and talked about how they were the same and how they were different. Then we did a taste test and rated them. I didn't try to graph the results -- too random.

After this, I cut up what was left of these apples, plus a bunch more, and we made applesauce! Boos found that thrilling and ate the warm applesauce with gusto.

Wednesday we strung pony beads on colored shoelaces -- a big hit. You can see my bead string in the foreground -- I kept making patterns and showing them, but they completely didn't get it. They would string a dozen random colors and tell me it was a "pattern." No problem -- their little fingers were getting lots of exercise.

Thursday of course was taken up with our trip to see the shuttle. Friday we did some little apple-related educational games, but they were not a hit. Above you can see "Apple Bingo" (with letters instead of numbers) and Baby A gave up after about two letters. Baby B stuck it out until his whole card was filled with apple Post-It notes, but it just wasn't a very interesting game.

And here is the other unpopular game. I made an apple tree out of construction paper and they rolled a die to see how many apple Post-Its to put on the tree -- except they changed the rules so that each time they rolled they would put ONE apple Post-It on the tree -- but they would write the number on the die on the apple Post-It. This was good for about six rolls and then school was over for the week...

...except of course for the finale, our trip to an apple orchard in Tehachapi today. Although boos don't look very happy in this picture, I think they really did enjoy the experience. We went to Kolesar's Apples, where you can pick on-site, and picked a bucket of Golden Delicious and Empire apples. We had read a book earlier called "A Day at the Apple Orchard," and in the book they talk about how to pick apples correctly: "turn the eye (the bottom) to the sky and tug gently." I reminded the twins of this, and we found that it worked very well and was a good way to tell if an apple was ripe or not.

After visiting another apple place (RB Family Orchard) for cider, dried apples, apple crisp, and more apples, we headed west to see the Tehachapi Loop again. Here we are waiting for a train -- we waited about 40 minutes, with a bunch of other people, until a train FINALLY arrived.

And here's the train going around the loop. It is so cool.

Then it was time to head for home. We were home before 5 pm, with all those apples. No doctor is going to be coming near us for a while!