Let me start by saying I do love my new job. HOWEVER… I SO miss seasonal fun activities. I LOOOVE fall and this is always the time when we do fun apple activities. We even took a field a field trip to an apple farm and plant. LOVE that field trip. I walk into the first grade class and I just miss that part so much. But, I still wouldn’t trade it this year. 🙂 To make myself feel like I’m involved in this applicious fun, I thought I would post some activities that I used to do. Some of this stuff was posted last year and some in 2011, but I thought I’d repost just in case you missed it.
Life cycle of an apple:
I read this cute book called Just a Seed. It’s actually guided reading level E, so a good portion of your kiddos can read this themselves. We read it as a class. It’s a cute book about a girl who throws out an apple seed and the book follows the seed until it becomes an apple tree. At the end an apple is picked from that tree and the seed is thrown out again. What a cute way to illustrate the cycle of an apple.
Last year I made this Read and Sequence page for my students.
If you have an Edhelper subscription, (which I totally recommend), they have the cutest apple life cycle project! It illustrates the life cycle of an apple better than I could. We made these in years past:
There are tons of cute crafts for sale on TPT for apples too!
To teach students about what an apple tree needs to grow, I made this PowerPoint. I have to say, that I actually enjoy watching it myself. Ha! I have never been one of those people who grasp concepts quickly, so I made this PowerPoint with a young Sarah (that’s me) in mind. So, I tried to get really basic and to the point.
(Please let me know if you have trouble downloading. I was having issues earlier.)
On this slide, the bee actually flies from one tree to the other. 🙂
I know there is better technology out there but I made this a while ago and it works for me, so why go searching for something shiny and new, right? Give it a try- it really is a kid pleaser!
My students LOVE this one! They watched it 3 times in a row. I tried to use basic fonts so that it wouldn’t get all messed up when you all tried to download it on your computers (since it’s not pdf). So please don’t laugh at my font choice! 🙂 You can cringe like I do though.
After the PowerPoint, I had my kiddos show what they learned by filling out this sheet:
I also made one where the words were already written for them. They just have to illustrate. This is for kids who need a little more support at the beginning of the year.
Next, we go over the seasons of an apple tree. After reading about it, students color, cut and glue in the correct spot.
We review the scientific process with this experiment.
First, we observe what happens to an apple that is sliced and left out. Then we ask the question, “What could we put on an apple slice to keep it from turning brown?” Students make a prediction (hypothesize). They show their hypothesis by coloring the apples brown or yellow to show which liquid they think will keep the apple from turning brown. We test our hypothesis. I gather the class and pour the liquids on different apple slices. We wait, check, wait, check. Then we record our results and draw our conclusion.
At the end of our unit, we all bring in an apple for our apple celebration. We use this little apple journal to record some of our activities.
For math, we play this simple addition game. I love it because it’s little prep. All I did was print out the trees beforehand. We use two color counters to be yellow and red apples. Players spin or roll dice. One dice is for yellow and one for red. They make addition sentences in their math notebooks and build on the tree.
And one more math game:
I copy red and green apples with numbers on them. Students match the apples to the board to make sums of 10.
You can find this unit at my TPT store.
UPDATE! This unit has been updated and have several additions.
