Age Group

Preschool
Kindergarten

Supplies

samples of different types of apples, apple branch, large pictures of apple life cycle, large easel paper, apple shaped cutouts (colors corresponding to types of apples)

Description

When planning a theme on apples, it is a good opportunity to teach about life cycles and plant growth. Depending on your location, a field trip to a local apple orchard is a wonderful hands-on experience for young children to see where fruit (apples) come from. However, when a field trip is not feasible, you can try to bring the apple orchard to your school!

See if a local farm could bring some supplies from their orchard for an in-school demonstration, (sometimes they can also bring a supply of apples with them for taste testing). Teachers can draw large pictures of the life cycle of an apple (from seed to blossom to apple).

In the photos to the right, Kim Shores from Johnny Appleseed Farm shows some of the tools used to take care of her farm and her apple barrel for collecting apples. Miss Brittany shows the photos of the apple life cycle, including an actual branch from the orchard. She also demonstrates how apples float in water!

Kim also talked about the different types of apples that she brought (describing their color and what they taste like) - and then best of all ... children got to taste 3 types of apples and then made an in-school graph of which kind was their favorite.

For some more Fall-related activities (with apples and pumpkins), see our blog post "Learning about apples and pumpkins in preschool".

-- Drawings and demonstration by Brittany Florio and Kim Shores

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