This apple activity focuses on both science and math. Cut pieces of red, yellow and green apples; cut enough pieces for each of your students to taste each apple. Ask students to taste each apple to see which one they like the best. After tasting the apples, provide children with apple shapes cut out of white construction paper. Instruct students to color in their apples the color that they liked the best. Gather the colored-in apples and glue them onto a piece of paper in columns; red with red, green with green, and yellow with yellow, forming a graph. Display the graph and examine it with students to determine what color apple is liked the most and which is liked the least.
Incorporate literacy instruction into your apple-themed unit with an apple adjective activity. Pass around apples to your students and allow them to feel them, squeeze them and smell them. After students have felt the apples, encourage them to provide a word that describes the apples: smooth, hard, shiny. Write their descriptive words on a chart and explain that the words that they have used to describe the apples are called adjectives.
This activity combines social studies and literacy. Read aloud "The Story of Johnny Appleseed" by Aliki. Ask questions about the book before, during and after reading to promote comprehension of the story. After reading the story, discuss with children the important role that Johnny Appleseed played in history. Write children's response on chart paper and display children's answers. As an extension activity, plant an apple tree on your school property or in a nearby park (obtain permission first) and explain to children that by doing so, they are emulating Johnny Appleseed.
Children can make their own apple trees through an art activity. Provide children with brown and green construction paper. Instruct them to cut a rectangle out of the brown construction paper and to cut a circle out of the green construction paper. Have them glue the green circle on top of the brown rectangle, forming the shape of a tree. Set red finger paint in bowls and instruct children to dip their thumbs into the paint and then press them onto the green circle, creating apples on the tree.