My Father's World K - Apple Unit

If you're following our My Father's World Kindergarten adventures, I've been posting our activities weekly. I'm going to be switching to simply posting about each unit after we complete it. MFW K has six days in each unit, so we don't end up doing an entire unit each week. This way you will be able to see all of the ideas we used for each unit in one post rather than having it broken up at times between weeks. We enjoy the six day schedule because then we aren't pressured to finish a unit each week and can occasionally add in a day or two where we need it without throwing off the schedule.

We completed our apple unit last week and enjoyed lots of fun apple activities. We had already taken a trip to an apple orchard and started reading apple books because they tied in with our leaf unit as well. Most of what we did was straight from the teacher's manual, I only added in a few things:

Apple pie - paint glue on a paper plate, sprinkle with cinnamon and add paper punched apples. These are hanging in the hallway and make our house smell nice.

Making applesauce - Lucy used this little knife to help me chop up apples to make applesauce. She hadn't used a knife before and did well with it. The knife is dull, so it was a good one to start out with. I had never made applesauce before! I just piled the chopped apples in a pan and added a bit of water and cooked until they were mushy and then used my potato masher to mash them up. It was a bit chunky, but we all enjoyed it.

I also had an apple felt poem that the girls played with, and an apple song that we sang:

Apple Up High (sing to "Twinkle Little Star")

Apple, apple, way up high

I can reach you if I try.

Climb a ladder,

Hold on tight.

Pick you quickly

Take a bite.

Five red apples, hanging on a tree

The juiciest apples you ever did see

The wind came by and gave an angry frown

And one little apple came tumbling down.

(repeat - Four red apples, etc)

I have a collection of felt stories and it works well to store them in file folders in a file box:

Books we read:

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro - good info book

The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

“A New House” in Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel

A Year Round Tree by Susan Blackaby (about an apple tree)

A Tree Is A Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla (about an apple tree)

A Day at the Apple Orchard by Megan Faulkner and Adam Krawesky

The Story of Johnny Appleseed by Aliki

I don't want to type out the whole teacher's manual for copyright reasons but we are enjoying our lessons and I'll keep sharing fun things that I add in myself. We are also learning sign language and having a blast with that. I will be reviewing some sign language flash cards soon so check back for that.