If you teach in the primary classroom, chances are you probably do some kind of “Apples Unit” during the school year. Children love learning all about apples, and they are the perfect symbol to help celebrate the coming of fall and cooler temps! But you can learn about apples any time of year! Here are 7 awesome apple activities you can use in your classroom to support hands-on learning!
Apples are such a fun science topic for the primary classroom. There are endless activities you can use for exploring an apple theme that will allow for lots of hands-on learning. Apples are also easy to find and inexpensive, making them a great learning material for the classroom, too! My favorite way to learn all about apples is with lapbooks. Lapbooks will allow you to focus on a few key points and help your kiddos remember what they learned.
What Are Lapbooks?
If you have never used them before, lapbooks are a great way to promote hands-on learning in your classroom.
Similar to an interactive notebook, lapbooks provide activities and tasks for children to complete and then arrange within a file folder.
Since lapbooks are smaller than the typical interactive notebook, they are perfect for digging into one topic, like apples! You can cover just the right amount of information for young learners.
Lapbooks also make a great keepsake to take home and provide a wonderful overview of whatever topic you’re targeting with your students.
Using lapbooks for apple activities will help your students retain key facts, allow them to explore, connect apples to a variety of skills, and prompt them to recall what they have learned!
Setting Up Your Lapbooks
Getting lapbooks ready to use is super simple! Once you know how to fold them, you will be well on your way to creating an awesome apple activities lapbook. Here’s what you need:
- Manila folders (colored folders work too!)
- Scissors
- Glue
- Crayons, Markers, or Colored Pencils
- Printed copies of Apple Activities from the All About Apples Lapbook
Once you have all of your materials, you are ready to go! The image below shows you how to fold the file folder to set up your lapbook. If you want a more detailed description of lapbooks and how to use them in the classroom, be sure to check out this post before you get started.
Set The Stage For Apple Activities
Before you dive into some hands-on apple activities, it’s a great idea to prep your little learners on this new topic that you will be exploring. I also love to add some apple decor to my classroom. A few cutouts on the door, an apple banner, and apple name tags on my kiddos’ desks. This quick and easy extra step excites my students and engages them in learning!
Once my room is ready to go, I like to start our morning out with an introduction video all about apples. There are tons of great ones on YouTube, but I especially love this one! This fun video dives into fun apple facts your students will love. This is the perfect start to a fun week of apple activities in the classroom!
Apple Activities For Hands-On Learning
Now that you have done a little intro, let’s jump into the 7 apple activities I love using in my room. Using lapbooks for these activities will allow you to target science, math, and literacy skills all together. This is a great way to create a well-rounded lesson plan all about apples.
1. Apples and Your 5 Senses
I like to kick off our apple activities by asking students to use their 5 senses to describe apples. This is a great way to introduce apples and work on vocabulary words for describing.
Ask children how they look, feel, smell, taste, and sound as they take a bite. Children will be able to write down their observations for each category inside their lapbooks. Be sure to save an apple for the next step, though!
Oh, and if you’d like to add some math, doing a taste test of different types of apples also makes a great graphing activity. You can set this up with a simple piece of graphing chart paper. Just define a few columns with the apples you’re using and color in a square to represent each child’s favorite one.
2. Explore The Inside Of An Apple
Next, slice an apple open to explore what’s inside. This is always a fun apple activity to include in your lessons! Talk about what each part of the apple is called, and then have students color their own apple diagram and add the labels to their lapbook in the correct places. It’s a great activity for connecting apples to your science standards. And. . . identifying the seeds in the apple is the perfect connection to the next activity.
3. Apple Life Cycle
Learning about life cycles is a science concept you can introduce as you explore apples. Your students will probably remember this from the fun intro video, but this is a great way to review and talk about this topic in more detail.
Children will cut and color the pieces showing the life cycle of apples from seed to fruit. These pieces can then be glued down to the folding, accordion-style flap in their book. This will create an interactive, folding piece within the lapbook. Kiddos will love unfolding this piece to reveal the life cycle of apples!
It’s a great way to practice those important sequencing skills, too!
4. What Can We Make With Apples?
One of the best things about exploring apples is discussing all of the fun things you can make with them! Students are always excited to brainstorm this topic and talk about their favorite apple treats.
Have students write down 4 of their favorites, like applesauce, apple juice, apple pie, and apple butter. Then, color and cut the pieces to attach to the lapbook. With some simple kitchen tools, you can even try making one or more of these as a class. With a crockpot, you can make applesauce or apple butter. Bring in a juicer to make your own apple juice. With a little coordination, you might even be able to bake your own apple pie using the cafeteria oven!
And . . . you can easily add an art activity in and teach your students how to use an apple cut in half as a stamp. This is a great way to use those apples that are left over from your apple exploration activity.
5. Discuss Apple Facts
I love adding a little pocket for collecting apple facts in the lapbooks. Students can write down their favorite things they learned about apples, write them down on the apple shapes, and store them in the fun little pocket piece in their lapbook.
My kiddos always love to show off all that they know about apples after this study. The fun pocket helps corral those facts into one place so they can share them with their families later!
6. Save An Apple Seed
Inside out lapbooks, I like to include a spot for students to glue or tape a seed from an apple. You can save the seeds you used during your apple tasting or have students draw some seeds of their own!
7. Apple Anchor Charts
I’m sure you already know that anchor charts provide a great visual overview for young learners, and this is definitely true when learning all about apples! I like to use anchor charts throughout our entire unit. Some, like labeling an apple, are done with a specific activity. Others, like our “Apples Need/Have/Are” anchor chart, are the perfect way to review and summarize apples at the end of the week.
This is a great anchor chart to complete as a class. Then have students use the information from the chart to write about apples. Depending on the time of year you do this, it might be copying to the lapbook or writing a sentence.
Even More Apple Activities For Hands-On Learning
The great thing about lapbooks is that they are completely customizable! While I love using the activities mentioned above, there are tons of other activities available in the Apple Lapbook resource you can choose from. Feel free to pick and choose whichever activities work best for your group. Also included, you will find:
- Colors of an Apple
- Apples KWL
- Stamp an Apple
- Measure an Apple
- Favorite Apple Class Graph
- Compare an Apple (size/weight)
- Compare Apple to an orange
No matter which activities you choose, your students will gain so much knowledge of apples and the apple life cycle! Help your students grow their understanding of apples while also targeting literacy, math, and fine motor skills with these fun apple activities.
For a quick video peek at how these Apple Lapbooks will look when complete, be sure to check out this video!
Keep Exploring Apples with Digital Activities
Can’t get enough apple-themed learning in your classroom?! Me either! This is such a fun topic to explore. That’s why I also created a digital version of my apple lapbooks to keep the fun rolling. Inside, you will find 17 different slides that can be explored together as a whole group using the interactive whiteboard or assigned to individual students to review, technology centers, or even homework! Here are some of the included topics:
- Apple Graphic Organizers
- Label an Apple
- Apple Life Cycle
- Apple Vocabulary
- Apple Picture Matching
- Apple Investigation
- Apple Writing and more!
In the digital version, you will find many of the same activities as the printable lapbook, but in a drag-and-drop, Google Slides format. The digital version also comes complete with fun videos on apple facts, visiting an apple orchard, and more, making this a great supplement to your apple lessons!
In my room, I use the digital format to kick off the lesson and get the conversation going. It’s so great to have a large visual example. Then, we will work on the paper pieces together as a whole group or in small groups. The versatility of this resource is a big win in my book!
The digital activities can also be easily added to your center rotations for a fun review of all you have learned about apples. They are a great way to work on important mouse control skills while also reviewing apples!
Get Started With Hands-On Apple Activities
Ready to get started learning all about apples with your kiddos? Grab this done-for-you Apple Lapbook resource for simple and effective apple-themed lessons. Your students will love the interactive pieces, pockets, and additions in these apple lapbooks. Oh, and don’t forget, the digital version is a great supplement or stand alone resource in a distance learning classroom!
Choose what works best for your group or grab the bundle of both and have fun diving into this fun and festive topic with your students!
Save These Hands-On Apple Ideas
Don’t forget to Pin these hands-on apple activities to your favorite classroom Pinterest board! Then you can come back the next time you teach your apple unit.
