I love learning about apples! It’s a great way to start out the year. We went to an apple farm last week, which is always so fun. We get a hay ride through the apple orchard, a tour of the packing facility, and samples of their apples and apple cider. Here are a few things I do during my apple unit.
frame by
chevron background by: amillionsighs.com
clipart by melonheadz
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. This is a great way to introduce the concept of a cycle. 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. Since I can’t share that with you, I made a Read and Sequence to share with you. Sorry, it’s not near as cool as the thing on edhelper. 🙂
clip art by kpm doodles
frame by scrappincop
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.
On this slide, the bee actually flies from one tree to the other. 🙂
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).
Then, I had my kiddos show what they learned by filling out this sheet:
Here’s one with a little more support for your firsties that get overwhelmed with writing at the beginning of the year. (I always have a a couple.)
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 and do these activities:
Sink or Float
Measuring:
Weighing
There are SO many fantastic apple units out there. I have purchased some great units that fill in the gaps for my apple unit. You can download this mini unit at my TPT store.
This unit has been updated! See the updates here:
