Johnny Appleseed and Apples Unit

Johnny Appleseed's Birthday Celebration  My APPLES UNIT for $3
                Celebrate his birthday with a day dedicated to Johnny Chapman!

Celebration Ideas:
Read a book about Johnny Appleseed
Watch a video about Johnny Appleseed  (9 minutes)
Johnny Chapman visits (wearing cut off jeans and plaid shirt and a pot on his head)
     He tells what it was like out planting seeds. Sometimes I get lucky enough where I get a man who
     knows how to play the guitar which the kids love!

Apple Centers (Open centers - students choose which to go to and in what order they want)
    1. Applesauce Scensory Table
    2. Apple Tasting and Graphing
    3. "I like (color) apples." sentence writing and then paint their apple
    4. Apple Patterns
    5. Apple Number Sequencing
    6. Apple Sorting and Graphing
    7. Apple Stamping (suggestion: cut out wedges on the tops of the stamp so they are easier to pull out)
    8. Johnny Appleseed picture (next to a tree with a pot on their head and apple)


Apple Sauce Sensory Fun

    9. Apple tree hand and foot art (then they get to count out and put some apples on their tree with a
    sentence that reads "I see _____ apples on my tree."
10. Scrap paper apple fill art

Apple Tasting and Graphing

Favorite Apple writing and painting.

I put these out on the table for the students to
copy their favorite color in the sentence.

Apple Stamping

Johnny Appleseed pictures

            

I printed the apple labels to show students
which center was what number for their mark
off sheet.

Apple Number Sequencing
plus counting apples

Scrap Paper Apple Fill Art

Johnny Appleseed pictures

Johnny Appleseed Visits!

Discussions:
Why is it so important that Johnny Appleseed help plant appleseeds all over the country?
Why did Johnny Appleseed wear a pot around on his head?
What would be hard about traveling around planting seeds?
What would be fun about traveling around planting seeds?
What was your favorite activity of the day?
Have you ever been apple picking?

Shared Writing: (students help write the words with teacher help)
Describe an apple using scenses on any organizer
Class writing a sentences (We like apples because ___, ___, and ___)
Class writing a paragraph about apples (older than beginning Kindergarten)

Additional Items in my Johnny Appleseed-Apples Unit
*  Apple Opinion (goes along with tasting, graphing, writing and art from above centers.
*  "I see # of apples on my tree."  Apple Tree (hands and feet) art (includes sentence strips)
*  3 various counting apples reader (focusing on the word "have") plus numbers in 5 frames (1-10)
*  1/2 sheet homework or classwork math concept pages (patterns, counting numbers, identifying  
     numbers, number sequencing and writing, adding apples
* Apple Sorting and graphing half pages (also practices tally marks) - need to cut out or di-cut or
   have apples on hand for sorting.
* Apples: Sink or Float Experiment (teacher and parent instructions only)
* "I have # apples on my head" portrait and sentence

Cycle of Apple Tree Life video

Apple Tree Game


The students have 5 seconds to come up and pick an apple off the tree and read the apple. If they read it in 5 seconds they get to keep their apple. My apples had upper and lowercase letters (uppercase on 1 side, lowercase on other side) - some were showing uppercase while some were lowercase. The students got to pick the apple of their choice, so they felt good about knowing the letter on the apple.

Could use this same concept with math or sight words.