Apples… apples… apples!

Goodness, I l-o-v-e teaching and doing this fun-tastic unit! We started our week off with apple patterns. The kids did this while I made our first taste-test for the week (apple butter).

We did some apple measuring which you can find here. The kids really enjoyed this… although I must be honest and say that I was a bad teacher and was unprepared for this fully. I went to look for my scales where I have kept them for the past 4 years and they were not there!!! I had to borrow from a fellow teacher and none of my other co-workers had one! AHH!! So my kids had to do this with only one scale—it got a little noisy (again, b/c of my lack of preparing). So I took it up so we could do it later when I got some balance scales from our math lab—low and behold, I FOUND my balance scales (after school) in the same spot they had been in for the past 4 years but in a NEW BOX! Yikes! I had moved them into it over the summer to organize it better and totally forgotten. Oopsie! Sorry kiddies! Anyway, here are a few pics of them measuring their apples.

 

Our next taste-test activity was these a-stinkin’-dorable apple frogs. I made these with my kids last year and they just “ate them up”—okay, okay, bad pun!!! :)

Super easy to make… just need sliced apples, peanut butter, grapes (cut in half—I use scissors to make it go faster), and chocolate chips (for the “pupil” as one of my genesis’ informed us today!) After chowing down, my kids asked for these “every day for snack” and “when we learn about apples again!” Haha… gotta love it! *Peanut allergy substitute: Shared this with a co-worker who has peanut allergies in her class and we modified it with cream cheese instead' of peanut butter.

“Apples” Poem I wrote… we used it to find rhyming words and chunks we know (or as my kids call say, “I see a chunky monkey!”) We found –ing, –th, –it, –all, –ap)

They got a copy of their own and put it in their writing journals to illustrate what the poem means to them.

Thought this one was cute…

This one was creative… you can’t see it too well but she cut it out in a circle and then added a stem and leaf for the top. I told her how creative and awesome it was and she said, “it’s cause I’m a genius!” lol… guess I’ve said that once or twice this year ;)

We made this cute Johnny Appleseed using tracers. I thought Bayleigh’s was fun and creative! Never had a kid label his pot with a J for Johnny (but this student has really taken to our labeling our pictures mini-lessons so it’s not shocking that she did this!)

Cara’s KWL chart… we will finish Monday. I like finding out what they want to know (how apples get sour/how they “git rottin”)

Parts of an apple… The kids made these with tracers and labeled the parts while I tended to our yummy applesauce! They then put them in their science journals.

 

Deanna Jump’s Who Took the Apples from the Apple Tree? class book:

         

           

Can you tell that I don’t like white space?!? haha… I just love Trista’s “surprised” look on her face! Priceless!!!

We wrapped up this week by eating our applesauce and theeeen… bobbing for apples. (had one of my kiddos from last year swing by this AM and he saw we were learning about apples and said, “I remember Johnny Appleseed and it was so fun bobbing for apples,” luckily; none of my firsties heard it this year. So this was a total surprise for them! yay! Two of them actually got apples (and of course it was literally the NEXT person after I switched off my camera!) 

Didn’t get to, but will do this next week:

Life Cycle of an Apple Tree in their science journal. I have my own and have already made copies but I think this one is a LOT cuter! Thanks Cara for posting it for me and everyone else who emailed you!

Apple word puzzles using short a words (-ap, –at, –an, –am). Kids will use a spinner to create words and put them on their puzzle. They’ll cut it out and create their own word puzzle.

Next week… community helpers! Isn’t late September/early October just the *best* time of teaching?!? Kick-starts all the fun units for the rest of the year!!!