(lively music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and TK classroom here on PBS.

I'm so excited that you tuned in.

I'm your teacher today, Mrs. Lara.

Hello.

Now I want you to tell me your name, are you ready?

Here you go.

All right, let's see if I can guess your special letter.

I'm going to use a little line on top because that's where all of our letters start.

And then I'm going to take a big line and put it at the bottom.

What letter have I made?

The letter T, that's right.

T makes the t-t sound.

Did I get that right?

Is that your special letter?

No?

Yes!

If it isn't, don't worry.

I'll do more letters throughout the week.

Now this week we are learning about apples.

It is day three of the five days that we're going to be together.

Let me add a magnet here.

So I have one on top and two on the bottom and together that makes three.

Now we're going to be learning all about apples today as we're reading a really fun story by Dr. Seuss called "Ten Apples Up On Top."

He's going to balance them on his head.

Ooh, I can't wait to read that one.

We're also going to do a project where we're going to do some apple stamping, like we did the other day.

And I might leave you with a little STEM homework, a little science activity for you to try at home.

So keep watching until the very end.

So right now we're going to start our learning with a song.

I have different colored apples here, and we're going to sing a song about them and then we'll practice our colors in Spanish too, ready?

Here we go.

♪ Have you ever seen an apple, an apple, an apple?

♪ ♪ Have you ever seen an apple that grows on a tree ♪ ♪ A red one, a yellow one ♪ ♪ A pink one, a green one ♪ ♪ Have you ever seen an apple that grows on a tree?

♪ Love that song.

Now we're gonna practice our colors in Spanish.

Do you remember them?

Red is rojo.

Yellow is amarillo.

Pink is rosado, and green is verde.

So I hope that you're learning along with me how to speak a little Spanish.

So right now I think it's time for (door bell rings) Ms. Maria's letter.

Let's see what she wrote to us today.

So here is our letter and we have been practicing, tracking our words with our pointer finger.

And I have a brand new song for you.

It's going to teach you about tracking, are you ready?

It goes like this.

♪ Come along and track with me ♪ ♪ Track with me, track with me ♪ ♪ Come along and track me ♪ ♪ That's how we read the words ♪ ♪ First you get your pointer out ♪ ♪ Pointer out, pointer out ♪ ♪ First you'll get your pointer out ♪ ♪ And follow along with me.

♪ Put your pointer here and slide to the end.

And once you get there, return, sweep and start again.

♪ Now, you know how to track your words ♪ ♪ Track your words, track your words ♪ ♪ Now you know how to track your words ♪ ♪ It'll help you learn to read.

♪ All right, let's see what it says.

Dear, Ms. Lara, you forgot one thing during yesterday's apple experiment.

I've been forgetting things all week, Johnny Appleseed's birthday, I wonder what I forgot?

You didn't investigate whether or not apples can balance on top of each other.

Oh, that's true.

On Monday, we talked about apples and we measured them and we put them in our balance buckets to see how much they weighed.

But I didn't talk about balancing on top of each other like that.

I wonder if that's something we'll do in our project place?

And our book that I mentioned talks about balancing too, so let me grab that.

This book is called "Ten Apples Up On Top."

And it's a very colorful book written by Dr. Seuss, writing as Theo LeSieg, and it's illustrated by Roy McKee.

So look at the pictures.

These are the characters in the book, a lion, a tiger and a dog, and they have different amounts of apples balanced on their head.

I wonder if they're going to drop them?

Should we read the book and find out?

Here we go.

Ten apples on top.

One apple up on top.

Look, there's one apple on the lion's head.

I think it fell from the tree, actually.

Two apples up on top, one, two.

Look at the lion, he looks so excited to have apples on his head.

He's like, Look at me, I'm balancing them.

Look you, I can do it too.

He's like, "Oh no, I thought I was special."

Look at the dog, doing it with no problem whatsoever.

Look see, I can do three, Three, three, I see, I see.

Now, Dr. Seuss is known for his rhyming words in his book.

Do you see them?

Three and see both say ee, they rhyme, don't they?

You can do three, but I can do more.

You have three, but I have four.

Look at him looking so smug.

Look, see now, I can hop with four apples up on top and I can hop up on a tree with four apples up on me.

Look here, you two, see here you two, I can get five apples up top, can you?

A new character, the tiger's been watching their competition and he's like, I have five apples, can you beat that?

Do you think he will?

Let's see.

I am so good, I will not stop, five, now six, now seven on top.

Let's count them, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

And look at the dog's expression.

Like, oh no, he can't beat us.

Seven apples up on top, I'm so good, they will not drop.

Five, six, seven, fun, fun, fun.

Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!

But see, we are as good as you, look, now we have seven too.

So now they have an equal amount of apples on top.

They each have seven.

And now see here, eight, eight on top, eight apples up, not one will drop.

Look how they're putting their apples up on top.

They're using a long fork, kind of like you use in a barbecue.

Eight, eight, and we can skate.

Look now, we can skate with eight.

You might not recognize these skates.

They're kind of old fashioned.

Now they have all the wheels in a row.

But that's what skates used to look like.

But I can do nine and hop and drink and can do this.

I think we can, we can do that too.

See, here we are as good as you.

We are very, very good I think with nine, we all can hop and drink.

I've never tried that before.

I think that would be dangerous.

Nine is very good, but then come on and we will make it 10!

Look, 10 apples up on top.

We are not going to let them drop.

It looks like they're not competing anymore, but having fun playing with each other and their apples that are balancing on their head.

(Mrs Lara gasps) Look out!

Look out!

I see a mop.

Look at that bear.

It's a mop and the bear has an angry expression.

What do you think the bear is going to do with the mop?

Let's see.

I will make the apples fall, get out, get out you one and all.

Come on, come on, come down this hall.

We must not let our apples fall.

So there's the bear chasing them with the mop.

Out of our way, we cannot stop.

We cannot let our apples drop.

This is not good, what will we do?

They want to get our apples too.

Whose they who want to get our apples?

Who's the they?

It's the seagulls, look.

They want to eat the apples.

I guess if you balanced them on your head, they would be closer to the sky, right?

They will get them, if we let them.

Come, we cannot let them get them.

Look out, the mop, the mop!

You cannot stop our apple fun.

Our apples will not drop, not one.

Come on, come on, come on, all.

We have to make the apples fall.

So now the bear with the mop has all these bear friends and the seagulls chasing them.

They must not get our apples down.

Come on, come on, get out of town, apples, apples, up on top, all of this must stop, stop, stop.

Now all our fun is going to stop.

Our apples all are going to drop.

Now they say that because look, they're going down a hill on a bicycle.

And those apples have stayed there, but what's blocking their way?

Looks like a big wagon and it's full of apples too.

Crash!

Boom!

There goes the seagull and the bear.

Look 10 apples on us all.

What fun.

We will not let them fall, the end.

And so what did you think of the book?

"Ten Apples Up On Top" kind of silly, huh?

Dr. Seuss is known for those silly books.

You go to the library or on the Sora app, make sure you check out his other books.

They're just as fun.

So we're going to work on a foundational skill, which is identifying and isolating a beginning sound.

So I need you to come make some pie with me.

This is our delicious pie, but this pie is special because it only needs ingredients with a P in it.

So I need you to ♪ Come bake a pie with me ♪ ♪ Come bake a pie with me ♪ ♪ We need ingredients that start with P ♪ ♪ Come bake a pie with me ♪ So let's see what we're going to put in our pie.

You know me, I like to make silly things when we bake.

How about a pumpkin?

Does that start with P?

P-pumpkin?

That's right.

The P makes the p sound.

So we're going to put pumpkin in our pie.

Oh, I love pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie sounds delicious.

How about this?

Do you know what this is?

It's pizza.

I always find a way to bring pizza into our work together.

Pizza, does that start with p-p?

It does, at the beginning, pizza says p. Pizza in our pie.

So far we have a pizza, pumpkin pie.

Never had it, sounds delicious still.

How about, ooh, how about butter?

B-b-b butter, does that say p?

No, that's B.

We're going to put it out.

No butter in our pie.

Let's do a few more.

Oh, do you do recognize this?

A lobster, delicious, very expensive lobster.

It's sure going to go in our pie.

Let's see, lobster.

No, it doesn't start with P. No lobster in our pie.

How about this one?

Another type of seafood, fried fish.

Does that say p?

No, I'm so glad, I thought I was going to have to put fried fish in our pie.

Let's do a couple more.

Pear, p, pear.

Yes, that starts with P, so a pear, pumpkin and pizza pie.

Ooh, and a Popsicle, p, p, p. Yes, we're going to put it in.

And how about a couple more, two more to go.

This one is something we're learning about this week, apple.

Ah, no, it's not going to be an apple pie.

Last one, and then we'll see our silly pie and see what we've made.

What's this?

Pretzel, p, p, pretzel, does start with P. Look at our pie that we baked up today.

A pretzel, pear, pizza, pumpkin, Popsicle pie.

I don't know, but strangely it sounds delicious.

If you try it, let me know.

Now we're going to move over to our project place where we're going to make a "Ten Apples On Top" inspired artwork.

So let's go over.

All right.

So for this activity, you're going to need a grownup's help because we're going to need to cut the apple in half.

So we're going to need one apple, a knife, and a fork, some red and yellow paint and something really fun, if you have it, a picture of yourself, kind of looking up because we're going to pattern some apples up on top of us.

If you don't have that, you can draw a picture of yourself, just on paper and cut it out and it'll work just the same.

And then of course you'll need some white paper.

Now, the first thing we need to do is create our apple stamps.

Last time we did this, I didn't show you what's inside of an apple.

So I'm going to show you.

I think you'll be surprised by the shape we'll see.

And hopefully we'll see it today.

Do you see that?

It's kind of hard to see.

There's a star in there.

There's a star inside of an apple.

You have to cut it kind of crosswise this way.

Let's see.

And there's the star, isn't that interesting.

There's a little story that goes with the star inside of an apple.

I hope that you check it out.

Maybe find it online.

So I'm going to stab a fork in there just so I can create a stamp.

Hey, and I'm going to move this aside here and grab some paint.

So we're going to make a pattern.

Remember a pattern is something that repeats over and over again.

So we're going to make a pattern that's called an AB pattern with red and yellow paint.

So there's our red and there's our yellow.

Last time I did this, I got too much paint on the apple.

A mistake I will not be making today.

I'm going to use a paint brush instead.

Although it still came out great.

Remember, it's about the process, not the product.

So sometimes things come out great.

I'm just painting my apple.

So what you're going to do is you're going to take strips of paper.

I have this white paper here, down, and then we're going to start our patterns.

We're gonna do a red apple stamp, and I'll show you what that looks like.

Actually I may not even need the fork.

Ooh, there goes one red apple.

Now we need to do our yellow apple, which is going to be the other half.

Now you can try this activity with apples that maybe you didn't eat or that are going bad.

That way you don't waste food.

Okay, let's do a yellow apple.

And so far, here we go.

You can actually see the star on that one.

One, two, we need a few more.

And then a red apple, let's do that.

That makes three and three plus one makes four.

And a yellow apple.

Are you seeing the pattern?

Let's see, we have four, red, yellow, red, yellow.

Let's keep going, we need a few more.

There's another paper.

And I'm going to put them together at the end.

Red, and yellow.

Okay, let's see.

♪ Red and yellow, red and yellow ♪ ♪ That's what makes her pattern grow ♪ Add a little more red.

So we have to count them all together when we're done, then you'll have to tell me how many we have left.

Let's see.

Okay, let's count them.

So I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

I need two more.

You have 10 fingers.

I have eight apples.

So I need one, two.

Those are left.

Lucky I have a one more paper.

We stopped on yellow, so we'll keep going with red.

Now some of you might be advanced and might try a different kind of pattern.

Like if I did red, red, yellow, yellow, red, red, yellow, yellow.

Okay, perfect, right here.

So now I have 10 apples.

Let's count just to be sure.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

And now is when the picture comes in.

We're going to take our scissors and cut our picture.

I'm gonna cut my picture out here.

All the way around, all the way around.

And like I said, if you don't have a picture, just draw one on, that's okay.

I'm going to put some glue on my picture and then I'll show you that activity all finished.

And then we'll move on to our STEM homework.

I'm actually interested to see what you guys come up with.

Okay, let's glue our apples together.

We're using a glue stick.

You can use regular glue as well or a stapler and put it on here so we can see our pattern.

It's going to create a very long line.

Make sure you watch where you glue it on to.

You want your pattern to stay a pattern.

If you flip it over, it might be wrong.

Okay, so this is what it's looking like.

Ms. Lara with 10 apples up on top.

What do you think?

I hope that you try this activity at home and if you do, make sure you tell your family about this story.

Now I want to show you what our homework is.

So you know that I love to leave you with a little challenge.

Okay, I'm going to bring in 10 apples and we're going to see if we can balance 10 apples because they made it look so easy in the book, but is it?

So I'm going to try to balance at least three.

Let's see if we can get it and then I'll show you a trick and see if you can... Oh, look very uneven.

I don't even know if I can get three up.

Nobody breathe, I think it's going to stay up.

It's going to topple, toppled!

Let me try again before I show you my trick.

All right, maybe this one is not the best one to put at the bottom because it's very uneven.

Let's see if I can find an even one.

Oh, this one looks very sturdy.

So that's a little hint for your homework, look for sturdy apples.

Can you imagine 10 on top?

Okay, there's three.

Can I do four?

Let's try it.

Then I'll show you my little trick that's going to help you with your homework.

Toppled!

Can't do it.

So I figured out a way that they might stay.

If you have Play-Doh at home, this can act as your glue.

So we're going to try it out.

I was able to get a few more than three up, but if you have some apples at home, this is your homework.

I want you to try to find a way to make the apples into a huge tower, as big as you can make it.

And if you do, take a picture, 'cause I'd love to see how far you get.

Oh, look much more stable.

Even if I move it around, it's not going to topple.

So let's get another chunk of Play-Doh and put it right there.

Now, why do you think that it stayed up this time?

That's a good question to talk with your family about as you build your tower.

Why wouldn't they stay up without the Play-Doh, but are staying up just fine with it?

What other materials might you add in the middle of the apples to make them more stable?

Grab another one.

I don't know if I can do 10, there's four.

I think I've gotten it all the way up to seven, which is a pretty big tower of apples.

Let's see how high we can make it today.

Lots of things you have to consider.

And actually there's a whole group of people called engineers that have to consider this as well.

So this is about as high as my tower's going to get.

I hope that your tower gets much higher.

Take a picture and show me.

I'll do one more.

Let's see if I can make it.

Ooh, I think it might topple.

I'll be so excited if it stays.

You've got to cheer me on from home.

Go Ms. Lara, go, go, Ms. Lara, go.

It doesn't feel very stable.

Oh, toppled.

(Ms. Lara chuckles) So I got to one, two, three, four, five apples today.

I hope you can make your tower higher.

All right, let me put my Play-Doh away while I tell you what we're going to do tomorrow, because it's really exciting.

Tomorrow we're going to do the first part of what will become our apple pie.

We're going to make the apple pie filling.

So I hope that you come with your apples and with your tools ready to peel, core, chop, cook, bake, and then the next day we'll make some crust and put it in cupcake tins so that we can enjoy some mini apple pies together.

It looks like I have just enough time to do our quick alphabet song.

And then we'll say goodbye until tomorrow.

Here we go, ♪ A, B, C you later, ♪ ♪ D, E, F, G I'm gonna miss ya ♪ ♪ H, I have to go now ♪ ♪ J, K bye-bye now ♪ ♪ L, M, N, O I had a good time ♪ ♪ P, Q, R you gonna miss me?

♪ ♪ S, T, U are my best friend ♪ ♪ V, W, X, Y, Z ♪ That's right, my friends, you're my best friend.

I'll see you tomorrow for some more apple fun, until then, a big squeeze and a big smooch from me to you.

Good bye, see you tomorrow.

(upbeat music)