Apple Week

We spent a week learning about apples and ended our learning with a family trip to the apple orchard.  Here are a few highlights of our week.

We started off by making a little flip book where we drew an apple diagram, labeled the part of an apple, wrote about what apples an become and described the characteristics of apples.  We also tasted red, yellow and green apples and graphed our favorites. I, sadly, neglected to get pictures of these activities.

My preclinical student did a little bit of Ten Apples Up on Top.  This guy is stacking "apples" (foam blocks with apple stickers on them) on his head.  They started by predicting how many they could stack then tried stacking them.

I saw Kim at Domikiddos blog about these little personal apple pies.  I knew my kiddos would love them. I baked them on a disposable oven liner tray.  In the photo below, the pies are ready to head into the oven. The kids loved them!  

During centers, students had the opportunity to create an apple using Legos.  This group loves building, so when I saw this idea, I knew we had to give it a try.  It looks like I'm going to need some more Legos for other projects, because this was a hit.  I rounded up these Legos at the Lego Store in the individual bins, so I only got red, green and brown blocks in different sizes.  I also picked up some orange ones thinking we'll try it again with pumpkins.

My favorite activity (other than apple picking) was bobbing for apples.  Only 2 of my kids had heard of this, and no one had done it before. My aunt told me I had to do it with them.  I had never considered it before, but once I figured out logistics (Read "GERMS"), I was all about it.

Each child had his/her own container to bob in.  We had 4 children at a time come over.  It was fun to listen to them cheer for each other and give one another tips.  I chalk this one up to problem solving fun and life experiences!

On Sunday, families were invited to meet our team of 4 teachers to at the apple orchard.  We had a great weather day, partly cloudy and upper 60s- it was better than predicted.  Families heard a short presentation then were off to pick their apples.

Using the apples I picked at the orchard, the kids helped make applesauce on Monday.  I had the apples peeled and cut into slices.  The kids cut them up and dumped them into the crockpot.  I snuck a little cinnamon in at the end and we feasted at the end of the day.  It was a hit!

What do you do to make learning more hands-on and give your students experiences?