A"peeling" Fun With Apples

Last week, we learned all about apples. We managed to work in lessons that met standards in all our domains.

I told the story of "Little Bear's Star", and cut the apple to demonstrate the "star" inside. (See pics of the flannelboard pieces here.) We let the cut apples dry out a bit, then used them in our art center for apple printing.

We used watercolors to paint apple outlines and used collage materials to decorate apple shapes.

On another day, cookie cutters and paint were laid out to make treetops for apple trees in art center.

Our life cycle booklet helped us understand the stages in the apple life cycle. We glued an apple seed to a little dirt for the first square. The next two life cycle squares gave us lots of fine motor practice, by cutting tree shapes from green and brown construction paper. We added crumpled pink tissue for apple blossoms and and finally, for the last square, an apple die cut shape for the "apple".

We wondered if apples would sink or float, then tested to see if apples of different colors had the same floating properties. For a little added fun, each student picked a small classroom item to test to see if it, too, "floated like an apple".

There were several fun games available in our math center. In one game, children rolled the dice or drew cards (depending on the focus skill needed) to place the correct number of red pom pom apples on the apple tree.

In another game, they placed the correct number of chenille stem worms on the apple.

 

For this version of the game, they matched the worms to the number on the apple. Also, instead of chenille stem worms, these little lure worms from the bait & tackle section of our local store provided extra sensory sensations. They are wiggly and fun!

 

I found these little apple wreath decorations that were perfect for sorting and one-to-one correspondence in our ice trays.

We measured ourselves and our friends in apple units to see "how many apples tall" we were.

After reading "10 Apples Up on Top", we made our own version  of the book for counting practice and then practiced balancing apples on our heads.

We taste tested a variety of apples, had apple slices with caramel for snack and made applesauce in the crockpot.

In our language and literacy, we talked about our apple observations and mad a Venn diagram of our findings. We also made several chart stories, including writing a recipe about how we made our applesauce.

On Friday, Johnny Appleseed visited our class to read to us at circle. I can't believe the kids weren't fooled--they knew it was me the entire time, but they played along anyway! (And I thought I was so convincing!)

  

The Fruit Stand we set up dramatic play was a big hit. The kids loved playing there and pretending to sell fruit!

AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE TEACHER AT PLAY!

A few little apples left.....

As I was tidying up this morning, getting things ready to be posted to the bulletin boards or filed,  I ran across a few last apple activities. I found our applesauce recipe that we wrote after making it as a class.

The applesauce was tasty, but I suggest you check additional recipes for cooking times!

I mentioned in the last post that we played a math game with large apple die cuts.  We rolled a die and placed the corresponding number of pipe cleaner "worms" on the apple. After we'd each had a few turns rolling, we counted and compared the number of worms on our apples. Here's a picture to see how easy it was to make. I laminated the apples and store the whole thing in a gallon zip lock bag. It's held up well for the last three of fours years!

We also had apples to lace for fine motor practice. We marked the holes and let those that were able to use the hole punch to make the holes. We used yarn for lacing around the edges.

A few even decorated the front of their apples.
In case you missed them, click here for An Apple A Day part 1 and An Apple A Day part 2 for some of our previous apple activites.


I'll be posting soon about the dinosaur unit we just completed. We worked the unit in at the last minute because so many of the kids were dino-crazy, so we had a lot of fun with it.

An Apple A Day (part 2 )

Last week, I posted some of the apple activities we've done with our apple unit in An Apple A Day (part 1).
Along with the usual art and science lessons that we do, we manage to work lots of math and literacy practice in with our apple unit.I asked each student to tell me one thing about an apple and together we wrote a chart story.

We played a math game with large apple die cuts.  We rolled a die and placed the corresponding number of pipe cleaner "worms" on the apple. After we'd each had a few turns rolling, we counted and compared the number of worms on our apples.

I had these cool worksheets from The Virtual Vine, but since we don't do any worksheets anymore, I am trying to re-purpose some of the great worksheets I have on hand already. I put each page in a page protector and the students placed beans on the apple to represent seeds. After the first group tried this, one of the friends asked if they could use some of the acorns we'd collected from the playground.

 

We sequenced the life cycle of an apple.

We also made a book and illustrated it ourselves!

Feel free to share your apple links and ideas in the comments!