Art and Reading about Apples

As you have probably noticed from my earlier two posts, Apple Tastings and Apples Apples Everywhere, we are having a BLAST learning about and experiencing apples! 

We've done a variety of art projects these past few weeks.  The children have loved sponge painting, scrub brush painting, mural painting, and finger painting apples and the different seasons of apple trees! 

Abby and Kailyn created apple trees with finger paints. 

Earlier in the week, the children used apple sponge paints to sponge down one of each color apple-- red, yellow, and green.  Later in the week, the children cut out each one.

Then, we began painting a tree out in the hallway to hang up all these apples! This ended up being a great solution to the problem of being out of brown butcher paper.  It turned out to be a fun painting experience for the children.



Yet another art project focused on a study of the different seasons of the apple tree.  I found these dish washing scrub brushes at the Target Dollar Spot and instantly thought of filling them with paint.  It worked great for the green leaves of the tree and it was a new experience for the children.

Austin and Jennifer are painting pink and white leaves on their trees to represent an apple tree in Spring.

Scholastic Weekly Reader provided us with the perfect reader this month!  All About Apples!  The children read these individually and then we read them together.  There were great photographs of the seasons of the apple tree.

We shared in a reading of two great poems that I found on various websites.  We spent a day repeating these, reading them chorally, and reading them independently. Then, the children illustrated around them.  These poems usually go home for homework on Thursdays.  Poems can easily build confidence in reading and fluency. 

Here are two apple centers that the children did.  One is an apple counting book!  The children counted and glued down red apples.  Then, they wrote the corresponding number. 

The other was a center led by Mrs. Claire!  I printed colored apples with our high frequency words on each one.  Mrs. Claire mixed them up and turned the cards face down. She worked with the children to play "Memory".  The children had to read each word their turned over and got to keep the match if the two words were the same.

Apples are always one of my favorite themes!  However, the time has come to move on.  Keep up with us and see what we'll be learning about next!!

Apples Apples Everywhere!

What a fun couple of weeks we've had learning about apples!  The fun part of using a "theme" like this in Kindergarten is that you can incorporate it into everything that you normally teach and learn and do! 

Mrs. Claire, one of our awesome parent volunteers, joined us for center time and worked with the children on identifying and ordering numbers.  I just printed the number on--you guessed it--apples!

Mrs. Claire also "played" an uppercase and lowercase letter sort game with apples on an apple tree! 

I found this idea on Making Learning Fun.

Nathan and Audrey worked hard to match those letters! 



Abby and Chloë are having a blast! 

I also filled my book shelf with Apple Books for the children to explore this week.  They checked some out during reading time and even took some home to share with their families!

So many of these wonderful thematic books I have collected over the years from those inexpensive Scholastic Book Orders.  Thank goodness for Scholastic!

During Center Time, Mrs. Misenheimer starting painting hands and arms.  We wanted to create an Apple Tree!  The arm, hand, and fingers were painted brown to become, on paper, the trunk, limbs, and branches.

After that dried, we did green hand prints all over the branches for the leaves and then red thumbprints for apples!  I am a huge fan of any art project you can make from a hand print! 

We also put our reading skills to good use by sharing in a reading of this apple poem:

Apple, Apple, on the tree,

I know that you are good for me!

You are fun to munch and crunch,

For my snack or for my lunch!

Apple, Apple, on the tree,

I know that you are good for me!

 After reading several times throughout the week, the children get to illustrate around the poem.

September 26th was also the anniversary of Johnny Appleseed's birthday.  We read stories and talked about what it might be like to walk in his shoes--if he ever wore any!



Apple Tastings

I knew my 3 week Apple Unit was coming up soon so last weekend Mr. Lochel and I headed up to Sky Top Apple Orchard for a little inspiration.

We started off with an empty bucket--

We followed the signs to our favorite kinds of apples--

We picked our first apple--

And we knew where there was one--there would be many more!

Mr. Lochel is SUCH a good sport! 

Back in Kindergarten, we had a YUMMY tasting time during centers.  Some of our wonderful moms came to help and brought in some apple treats! 

Audrey loved the apples I brought back from the orchard!



Reese's Mom brought in an apple pie for us to taste!

Jennifer's Mom brought in some apple juice for us to drink! 

Our wonderful intern, Mrs. Miskelly helped pour out some servings of apple juice.

Chloë and Audrey's Mom brought in some homemade applesauce!

Dario loved the applesauce!

Giovanna loved tasting these dried apples!

What a GREAT experience for the children to taste some of the products that can be made from apples!  A big "Thank You" to all my classroom parents that helped by sending in more apple products for us to try and to those that came to help!