Apple Unit Week #1

At our house, we LOVE fall and all that comes with it. Apples are a huge part of why we enjoy fall so this year, I decided we would do a little unit to learn more about the shiny round fruits! Just a warning, I took lots of picture and there will be more to come for next week so these posts might be L.O.N.G :) Here is a little "taste" of what we've done this week with apples:

Apple Books
The girls and I went to the library last Saturday and I think we checked out all of the apple books that were left! Even though we didn't have many to choose from, some of these turned out to be GREAT reads (our favorites being Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins and Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington...this one has a few recipes in the back we'll be trying soon)

Fall Festival "Apple Sucker"
Our city (and luckily our side of town) is the home to the nation's 2nd largest street festival! It takes place the first full week of October every year and one of the highlights is the FOOD. I will not mention all the different foods available to try, but Little Bear had to have an "apple sucker" (aka caramel apple) and some apple cider when we took her down for dinner one evening. She was so excited and I loved seeing the connection she had made between our lessons on apples and trying out the real thing!

Apple Size/Color Matching Game
I found this little game here. It was supposed to be a flip book, but I decided to just make it into a matching game and it was just as fun.

Apple Tree Number Match Game
This is a great counting game I found here. The tree tops have 0-12 apples on them and she had to find the tree trunk with the corresponding numeral. I really like this game, however, it took a great deal of focus from Little Bear to complete it. I think on the days we played it she had already been sitting too long and needed to get some energy out! So I had to really make it FUN and exciting to get her to finish :)

Apple Color Page
I found this printable and many others here. As Little Bear was choosing which colors to use, we talked about the three different colors of apples: red, yellow, and green. She wanted to color them blue at first, but decided to stick with "real" colors after our discussion. We also counted the apples in the basket and I wrote the number 12 at the bottom in pencil and she traced it with marker. She's really into trying to "trace" lately!

Apple Number Match
When I found this worksheet on abcteach.com, I really didn't think it was something LB could do just yet....I was wrong! I pulled it out for her the other day and she knew right what to do! She counted the apples and then found the corresponding numeral and drew the lines just great with her pencil (she LOVES using a pencil these days).

Fingerprint Apple Tree Painting
I think this was both of our favorite project for the week...a cute little apple tree made by her tiny little hands :) I can't remember where I read about this idea, but it turned out better than I expected! We painted the palm of her hand and four fingers with brown paint then she stamped it on the paper for the trunk. She used her thumb for the green leaves and her pinky finger for the red apples. She was very proud of her work and couldn't wait for it to dry so she could display it on the fridge!
Apple Songs and Rhymes
There are SO many adorable songs and rhymes about apples. I found these and these and narrowed it down to just a few for this week. Here is Little Bear reciting A Little Red Apple rhyme.

Orchard Field Trip
Okay, so the fingerprint tree was cute, but THIS field trip we went on today was by far the favorite apple "activity" from this week. A good friend of ours happens to work at a small local orchard and invited us to come take a little tour. We had the BEST time, even though the weather was a little chilly this morning!

Little Bear checking out the apple picking ladder, which had 3 legs instead of the usual 4 so they can put it really close to the tree.

Trying on the apple picking bag and listening to Mallorie intently.

The VERY large cider making machine! It was very interesting to learn how they make cider.

The old-fashioned cider maker...much different than the one they use today! This one is more like the ones we had read about in our books :)

Cider taste-testing ;) We even got to try a cider slushy, yummy!!!

Gallons of bottled cider in the cold room.

Taste-testing 2 different varieties of apples, Winesap and Jonagold.

Happy girl riding along with Daddy through the orchard.

Checking out a fallen apple to make sure it was okay ;)

TJ's Orchard also has a pumpkin patch so we took advantage of it and grabbed a wagon to go in search of the "perfect" pumpkin!

There were SO many great ones and we got to cut our own right off the vine!

Posing on some gourds (I love how she says gourd, sounds like "gerd")

Little Tiny was not so sure about Daddy leaving her alone with all of the big, round, orange things!

Now we are looking forward to next week's apple adventures and using all the apples we got to make some yummy goodies :) Happy Fall everyone!