Every day we did a little bit of research on his life using books and videos such as the fantastic one from Brainpop, Jr. By the end of the week our little schema chart looked like this! Every year I am so amazed at how much my kids love learning about non-fiction. They can't even get over putting their ideas on the chart!
On Johnny Appleseed's actual birthday, we made hats and the kids decorated the strip with different things we had learned about Johnny Appleseed. This friend drew Johnny putting apples in a basket next to his little knapsack and a tree he had planted! So cute.
I also integrated a lot of apple activities into our math routine as well. Usually I save predictable chart activities for the reading/writing block, but I wanted to give the kids a little extra practice on subitizing and counting skills. I made these little apple cards with numbers 1-10 and then created the skeleton for the sentences the kids would be creating. One at a time, a student would choose a card, count how many apples they had, and then put it into the sentence stem with our sight word of the week (see)!
It also gave me a chance to see what kiddos need a little extra practice on those number reversals! :)
We've been loving using our math journal prompts from Deedee Wills.... seriously, if you haven't checked out her bundle, you are missing out! When we use our math interactive notebooks, we'll usually have one thing to do/glue in our journals based on what we are learning about that day; then we'll glue one of Deedee's math journal prompts underneath that practice skill and work on our word problem solving skills! Of course, we used one of her apple prompts from her September pack. I love seeing how differently all of my students' illustrations turn out!
The morning of our apple extravaganza, we had a big apple taste testing. I brought 4 different kinds of apples for the students to try. First, we used our 5 senses to describe things about a red apple. It was kind of a struggle to get these descriptive words out of them, but once we got a few on the board, the ideas came flying!
My super awesome apple slicer gave us a chance to really see all of the parts of an apple! They were using vocabulary such as "core", "seeds", and "flesh" the entire time! After we were finished, I let each student have an apple seed and they all wanted to go plant trees out on the playground "like Johnny Appleseed"! Haha!
After our taste test we created a giant class graph, then we used an amazing FREE graph from Teacher Bits and Bobs to record our results! I have to say, I was shocked that they liked the yellow apples the most.
In the afternoon, we had our big apple extravaganza where the students went to 4 different apple activity centers:
1. Stained Glass Apples
These were a total pain to make with only me, myself, and I in the classroom... but it was worth it, because once they dried and I peeled the wax paper off, they were SO adorable! Later on I added a piece of yarn at the top so they could hang it in the window at home.
2. Johnny Appleseed Birthday Craftivity (from The Bubbly Blonde Teacher)
I LOVED this! The fab Bubbly Blonde Teacher made this as a wonderful freebie in her TPT shop (link above)! We completed the "All About Johnny Appleseed" graphic organizer the day before so all the kids had to do was put together their adorable party apple craftivity!
3. Parts of an Apple Labeling
My students did SUCH a great job on this craft with very little direction from me... thank goodness, because I was running around like a crazy person during all these craftivities! What was I thinking?! 3 going on at once with no helpers in the room? The only reason I made it through was due to my gloriously small class size (which has never happened before this year!)
The fourth activity the kids did was a Johnny Appleseed sequencing activity... unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of it! The kids had an absolute blast... they still talk about Johnny Appleseed even now! I love it when they are learning in such fun ways that they don't even realize it's work. :)
