Apple Activities for Children

Tomorrow is Johnny Appleseed day! It is the day we recognize as John Chapman's birthday, otherwise known as "Johnny Appleseed". If you like apples at your house, this is a great day to get some fun activities in. If you homeschool, there are various activities you could do to make the entire learning day a whole language experience! When my girls were preschoolers, we would go apple-picking at a local apple orchard. We still go apple-picking but now we wait until the weekend as they are too busy in school and homework in the evening hours. Some fun activities you can try (many K-2 classrooms in schools do some of these activities as well to supplement their language arts, social studies, art and science curriculum). Have fun on Apple Day!

• Read books about Apples! There are TONS of books appropriate for children ages 2-8.
• Make homemade applesauce, muffins, bread or apple crisp. If you are really brave, bake an apple pie together!
• Take an apple and cut it in half so you see the "star" in the middle. dip in red, green and yellow paint to create apple prints. Use paper that is "fingerpaint paper" for easy clean-up and drying.
• A great book to read together if you are Christians is: 3 in 1: A Picture of God by joanne Marxhausen. This book is a great book to explain and teach the trinity to your child. It is especially good for ages 6-10. It shows the various parts of the apple and relates it to the trinity! I highly recommend this book.
• Sort various apples by color. Make a book about apples by drawing pictures and labeling each picture. For prek-1st graders you could have them print: I see the _______apple. Have the child fill in the blank with the word "red", "yellow" or "green". And then draw what he wrote underneath the picture. This is a great activity to reinforce sight words!
• Play an apple matching game. Use real apples or cut out apples. This is a great game for ages 2-4.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. ENJOY!