Foamie Friday: Five Red Apples

This week I am (finally) hopping on the Flannel Friday bandwagon, though I am calling mine Foamie Friday because I like to use craft foam instead of flannel.  I find that the colors are brighter, it cuts and glues easier, and you can add details simply with a sharpie marker and they show up well.  I put a little piece of velcro on the back so they stick a little better.  (My flannels would also fall down a lot.)

Our theme this week was Apples so I used Pat Hutchin's Ten Red Apples.  Ten was quite a few apples for a 2-3 year old story time, so I modified it to five.  My tree has apples that can be removed, thanks to velcro!  I picked four animals - a horse, pig, goat, and cow, and I also have the farmer and his wife.  The tree flips around for the end of the story and has another 5 non-removable apples.

This is a great story for counting and for animal sounds.  I have the kids help me with that part.  The text goes along the lines of:

5 red apples up in the tree.
Yippee and fiddle-dee-dee.
Cow comes to take one,
Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Moo, moo and fiddle-dee-dee.
Cow! says the farmer, save one for me.

Then of course when there is 1 left the farmer says: yippee there's one left for me!  At which point his wife shows up and is sad that:
No red apples, my oh my.
No apples to back in a pie.
Boo, hoo, and fiddle dee dee.
Wait! cried the farmer,
Another apple tree!

This might vary a bit from the text of the book, but that is how I memorized it.  (Though I do keep a cheat sheet on my cart just in case I need it!)