Fall is the perfect time to start an Apple Unit Study with your kindergartener! Those sweet red, yellow, and green apples go idyllically with the fresh, crisp Autumn air.

There is no better unit study to start your homeschooling year with, my friend!

That is precisely why I decided to start my Kindergarten at Home curriculum with APPLES! If you have a little one that is 4 to 6 years old, join us!

Please pop on over to read all about Kindergarten at Home and the 18 amazing unit studies that await you and your little ones this year: https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/kindergarten-at-home

Each unit study spans two weeks and includes ALL foundational skills little ones need—math, letters and literacy development, phonological awareness, STEM challenges, science experiments, cooking projects, art projects, critical thinking, problem-solving questions, and more!

If you are already a part of our Kindergarten at Home community, here are some additional photos for you to enjoy as you and your little ones work through the Apple Unit Study!

Apple Unit Study Activities

Please Note: This is just a small glimpse inside our Apple Unit Study. For the full activities and many more, step-by-step learning activities, and your day-by-day 36-week plan, you will need Kindergarten at Home. 

Apple Seed Planting

Skills: Science, Nature, Life Skills

Plant some apple seeds and check back on them throughout your apple unit! While you’re planting, talk about what plants need to grow. They need water, just like we do. They also need healthy soil, which provides nutrients and a place for roots to anchor the plant. Finally, plants need sunshine to make food through a process called photosynthesis, and a temperature that’s not too hot and not too cold.

Apple Picking

Skills: Real-Life Learning, Community Building, Gross Motor Skills

Go apple picking! Head to your local apple orchard, or travel down a country road until you find an apple tree at the side of the road and pick some apples.

Not only is this a wonderful memory-making activity, but it is also great for gross motor development (twisting your body to pick the apples) and crossing the midline (putting the apples into a bucket).

Enjoy some of those fresh apples as a snack, and save some for more apple activities in the coming days!

Apple Tree Names

Skills: Letter Names and Sounds Introduction, Fine Motor Building

Draw an apple tree on a piece of paper with long branches. Write your child’s name clearly on three of the branches (remember, capital for the first letter and lowercase for the rest). Next, write your child’s name three times on a piece of red construction paper, and cut out each individual letter for little name letter apples.

Have your child build his name by matching the letter apples on top of the branches of the tree three times.

Apple Name Puzzles

Skills: Letter Order, Literacy Development, Hand Strengthening, Scissor Skills

On a piece of red construction paper, cut out a large apple shape. Write your child’s first name spaced out across the apple. Be sure to use proper form—a capital on the first letter and the rest lowercase. Draw vertical lines between each letter to make “apple slices,” with one name letter per slice. Have your little one cut on each apple slice line. Say, “Thumbs up!” while cutting to remind your child to hold the scissors properly.

Lay out your puzzle pieces to show your child what their completed name puzzle will look like. Then mix them up! Now, your little one can find each of his name letters and place them in the correct order. After, you can glue it all down on a piece of black construction paper. Your little one can even cut out a stem and leaf for the top!

Journal Writing

Skills: Literacy, Creative Thinking, Fine Motor Skills, Imagination

Try giving your child a prompt for their journal! Encourage your child to take her time drawing her thoughts, or working collaboratively to add letters or words to her pictures. Go nice and slow, encouraging your little one to dive deep into her wonderings.

You could try: “I wonder what it would feel like to be an apple on a tree?”

Apple Dissection

Skills: Science, Fine Motor Skills, Counting, One-to-One Correspondence

Grab a couple of apples and perform a dissection! See if your child can identify all of the parts of an apple as you dissect it, including the stem, leaf (if it has one), skin, flesh, core, and seeds.

What does the inside of the apple look like if you cut it from top to bottom? What about from side to side? Can you find the star shape that the seeds make inside? Have your child count how many seeds are inside the apple. Do both apples have the same number of seeds?

When you’re all done, plant some of these seeds to grow an apple tree!

Apple Boats

Skills: STEM, Fine Motor Skills, Problem-Solving

Cut up some apples in different shapes and sizes. Have your little one make apple boats by connecting the apple pieces together with toothpicks. A sail can be made by poking a toothpick through a small piece of paper (in through one side of the paper, then back out again). Plop those boats into a large bowl of water and see if they float!

Your little one can experiment with different shapes and sizes of boats. You can even cut up different types of apples to see if one variety floats better than another. Why might this be? Try adding some coins or LEGO pieces to see how many the apple boat can hold without the boat sinking or the pieces falling off.

Apple Prints

Skills: Creativity, Fine Motor Skills

For this project, we’re going to repurpose an old white T-shirt into a bag and decorate it with apple prints. To make the bag, cut two rectangles out of an old white T-shirt, sew three of the edges together, then flip the bag inside out. Your child can also braid yarn to make a handle.

Now it’s time to decorate! Cut an apple in half widthwise. Do you see the star shape that the seeds make? Using fabric paint and the two apple halves as stamps, have your child decorate her bag. She may want to experiment with how much pressure to use when stamping the apple, the amount of paint, and how many times she can stamp an apple in a row.

There you have a little glimpse inside our Apple unit study! There is plenty more in store for you with the Kindergarten at Home curriculum—lovely stories, poems, and many more hands-on learning activities!

Take a peek inside Kindergarten at Home here:

https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/kindergarten-at-home

Thank you so much for reading, sweet friend!

xo
Sarah