Johnny Appleseed and Apples

The end of September officially marks the fall's beginning and the celebration of harvest time. I mentioned in the previous post that last year we took part in Johnny Appleseed's birthday part at our public library. This year I decided to catch the opportunity by the tail and introduce my daughter to legendary Johnny Appleseed whose real name by the way is John Chapman and different types of apples. This topic is so versatile! There are so many links and resources that it'll be enough for years and years ahead without it getting boring.
What we did:
1. Read about Johnny Appleseed here and here(they have a vocabulary list at this one which saved my time).
2. Watched this wonderful story about Johnny.




3. Watched Disney version of it.







4.We did a browning apple experiment. For this we cut an apple in quarters. 1st quarter we put on a plate and left it on the table; 2nd quarter we put in the refrigerator; 3rd quarter we sprayed with lemon juice and left out on the table; 4th quarter we sprayed with lemon juice and put it in the refrigerator. Every minute or so we would check on all of them writing down our observations: which one got brown first/last, how long it took it. Then, we discussed oxidation and how lemon juice helped preserving the apple halves better.
5.We played an apple memory game here simultaneously learning about different types of apples.


6. We made a cool paper apple that my Pumpkin noticed could be a notebook as well.

For this project you will need:
red/orange/green/yellow construction paper
paper glue
scissors
hole puncher
pipe cleaner (to make an apple stem)
a drinking glass/soup can (to trace circles)
Take your colored construction paper and trace 16 circles. Cut them out and fold them in half. Squeeze some glue on that semi-circle, take another circle folded in half and put one half of a circle on top of the other. Now it should look like a full circle with a divider in the middle. This is the pattern you should follow till you use all of the folded circles. Then, take the first piece and the last and glue them together. Let your "apple" dry for a couple of hours. When it's dry take a hole puncher and make two holes in the first and the eights fold. Take your pipe cleaner and pull it through the holes pull the middle part and twist it making a loop that is going to be the future leaf. Twist the loose ends together as well - this is the stem. Cut out two identical leaf forms out of green construction paper. Glue them over the loop: one part on top, the other on the bottom.
Your apple is ready!
7. We did some word math problems that were apple related.
8. We snacked on apples and had apple cider for lunch. On September 26th we are planning on baking an apple pie for our Johnny Appleseed party.


There are other good resources that I would recommend to check out:
Teachers' Resources for K-Gr6(download files of activities, projects and coloring sheets)
Apple activities (book lists, songs, poems, games, worksheets)
Apple unit(lesson plan)

And some good apple recipes:
Betty Crocker
Easy Recipes for Kids
Healthy Apple Recipes
Everything from apples

Apples And Apple Related Activities

Autumn is in the air. Mornings are cool and crisp and afternoons are sunny and filled up with the last warm breath of summer. Beautiful New England autumn...
The change of seasons, our Saturday farmers' markets and of course, reading blogs of my fellow-bloggers gave me an inspiration for this post.
September is an apple picking month and also, on September 26th we celebrate the birthday of Johnny Appleseed. Last year Pumpkin and I attended Johnny Appleseed's birthday party at our local public library. We listened to the story about him read by the librarians, tasted apple treats washing them down with apple cider and did apple related crafts. It was a great time and this year I decided to do something similar to that.
First, we read the book How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro that tells the story of an apple from a tiny bud to the final result - fruit.

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I especially like the simplicity of the illustrations that deliver the concept of flower fertilization to even the youngest of botanists. Look at that!




Maybe it was not that easy for my 5 year old to grasp the idea of how apples grow from the first time but I am pretty sure that after a couple more times of reading it she'll be correcting me sequence of events.
To explore the apple core with its seeds we cut a couple of apples across to observe the star-shaped compartments. We took the seeds out, counted them and compared to the flower seeds we planted outside earlier this month. Then, we did the classic apple printing giving it our own abstract twist. You can see the star-shaped compartments of the apple core her and there.

Check out what you can do with apple printing and apples at The Wonder Years as well.

After that we could not skip the classic "apple" book Ten Apples Up On Top! by Theo LeSieg.
It is a good book for reading beginners and also it is a good one for those who are learning to count up to 10.
I had a Flipbook: Matching and sequencing by Learning Playground. It is suitable for kids from around 2,5-3 and up.

It was a bit easy for my Pumpkin(she didn't show any enthusiasm at all) but we did a sequence with apples anyway. Here it is.


We did a whole lot more ...and still doing it. Stay tuned. ;)