Apple Fun School Week

Johnny Appleseed Directed Drawings

Fall isn't quite here and most folks aren't even thinking about apple picking season, but for us it just worked best in our schedule to do our apple fun week the last week of August. And we've technically already gone apple picking and made applesauce; so I guess for us it isn't really too much of a stretch to do our apple fun week so early in the year.

Most of the activities are geared for the younger ones in the bunch, but I made an effort for the bigger kiddos to have a few fun apple learning activities on Friday. 

Over the years I've had the tendency to go overboard on our fun schooling weeks, so I made a major effort this year to taper things down just a notch. For our apple fun week I planned for one apple-tailored activated a day and then Friday had a few more sprinkled in for the older ones.

I read these books during our read aloud time. The top two right books are fairly long so I divided them up throughout the week.  My collection of apple themed books is not that extensive, but it's enough to get us through the week. Each year I try to grow our home library and it looks like I really need to work on this particular theme, lol. 

First we started off with apple stamping. I cut apples in half, painted the inside with red paint, put a corn poker into the apple and let the children have a go at 'stamping' their construction paper.

The sensory box this week was apple themed with old fashion oats, faux apples, cinnamon sticks, green pieces of yarn (to imitate worms, lol) a small scooper, and a small tin pail.

Another day the children made torn paper apples. I printed off an apple template on card stock, poured some glue on it and let the kiddos glue bits of red torn construction paper onto their apples.

We made marbled apples by placing another card stock apple into a pan, squirting some red paint onto the middle of their apples, and then placing three marbles into the pan for them to roll around.

For our apple themed snack activity day the children made no bake apple pie in a cup. We put graham crackers into a baggie that I let each child take a turn smashing with a rolling pin. We put the crushed graham crackers into the bottom of a cup, scooped apple pie filling on top of that, and then topped with cool whip. I let each one help make their 'apple pie' in a cup as best I could, lol.

On Friday the older children added to their ongoing interactive notebooks (we do a daily history science, or project interactive notebook activity) with a writing assignment regarding Johnny Appleseed, whom we'd read about during the week.

We discussed and labeled the parts of an apple which also went into their interactive notebooks.

Finally they added an apple lifecycle craft to their interactive notebook.

One of our favorite art projects is Directed Drawings. This is where I advise the children step by step what to draw. I love how everyone's pictures turn out and since we've been doing this for years, it's amazing to watch each child's drawing skills improve over time. This week we did a Johnny Appleseed directed drawing that I found for free at Teachers Pay Teachers.

The last project the younger children did was a paper plate Johnny Appleseed craft that I found for free on Pinterest.

I'm still hoping to take the children on a field trip to an apple orchard in North Alabama, but it's a really long drive and we have to 'piggy back' the public school tours or daycare tours; so it's not always something we get to do yearly. The children did ask if we were going to get to go this year as it has been a couple years since we've been, Lord willing I'll be able to make it happen. 

It can be mighty hard to find the balance between 'real homeschooling' and 'fun schooling'. There have been seasons of homeschooling where we've done no fun learning activities and then other seasons where that's all we've done. I'm currently on the platform that it's okay to plan and incorporate fun learning activities and field trips into your academics, they just shouldn't be the 'meat and potatoes' if you will. 

While I'm not a fan of recreating the public/private school's broken system; I am of the mindset that children need to be in a constant state of learning which must be encouraged by their parents. What works for one family may or may not work for another. This is why it is so important for homeschooling families to share the nitty gritty of their homeschooling days ~ for no other reason than that we may all glean and improve our methods of educating our own children. Which is why I try to share what we do. I have gleaned so much from other homeschooling families over the years. And maybe, just maybe this is a tiny way I can pay it forward. 😊

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer