Apples are the perfect basis for our learning this early fall.  Many of the children have been taking trips to the orchard, so it is great to tie these experiences with our time at school.  Here are some of the highlights for our unit…

Math – We worked on our counting and number recognition as we read Ten Apples Up On Top.  We added miniature apples and apple trees to our manipulative shelf.  The children counted and added the corresponding numbers of apples to the trees.  We also added a vertical chart of stick apples to as well. 

Literacy – We had many recipes to cook with this unit, so it was a great time to read recipes.  For each recipe we did, we used a recipe with some pictures to assist us in following the directions.  When there weren’t pictures, we used clues from the words to help us figure out what ingredients needed.  Apple, flour, and water were the easiest for us to “read”.  Miss Sarah and Miss Lisa also made a class book (attached) about their trip to the orchard with one of their friends.  It is in our class library and has become a fast favorite.

Block Area – To go along with Ten Apples Up On Top, we added apple cut outs to our blocks.  We worked carefully to stack them up as high as we could.  It definitely took a lot of patience to get our high towers built.  We added math to this area as well as we worked on stacking the apple blocks in patterns of red and green.

Art – One of our favorite apple art projects was apple printing.  We cut the apple horizontally and vertically, which helped us notice the differences in the apple.  The children recalled the story of “The Little Red House with the Star Inside”.

Fine Motor – We worked our small muscles with playdough.  We worked to roll the dough into small worms and add them to our apples.  Some of our apples had letters on them, so it helped us work on letter recognition and formation as well.

Science and Sensory – We heavily used our senses of taste and smell.  One of our favorite activities was our apple taste test.  We used red, yellow, and green apples.  As we tasted, we talked about the differences in flavor and in texture.  We also added math to this activity as we charted our favorite kinds of apples.  The red apple was our favorite, but we liked them all as long as we had caramel dip.