Apple Dunking

What says the beginning of the school year and fall more than APPLES!  We eat them, we love them, but do we know the science behind them?  We did a little experimenting in science this week to find out more about these delicious little fruits.  

Look how adorable this pennant banner turned out in my classroom from our Apples, Apples Everywhere kit in our Simply Sprout store.  My favorite part about it is that the letters come in white and green.  My little helper bee of a student put it together with one white letter and I couldn't bear to change it!  She is a special apple in the bunch!

Since my students are learning all about the scientific method before starting their science fair projects, we did a quick experiment.  This is a super simple one to do at home too!  Before starting your experiment make sure to have children make observations, predictions, pose questions, and create a hypothesis.

All you need is:

Apples

Lemons

Shallow bowls

Water

Knife (with adult help)

Directions: Peel and slice the apple, and cover one slice of apple with water in one bowl.  In a second bowl, squeeze half of a lemon on another apple slice.  In the third bowl, leave a slice of apple exposed to air.  Let the apple slices sit for one hour.

During that hour we made several observations and journaled about what we saw.  Remind students that it's important to jot down the time of each of those observations.

While we waited for our apples to do their thing, we dissected apples as well.  This was a great activity to teach the importance of diagramming and labeling.   We worked with our younger science buddies on this project, so it was important to choose an object that was appropriate for both age groups to dissect and diagram.

The cute diagram sheets came straight out of Simply Sprout's Apple kit as well.  We talked about all the parts of the apple, including what makes up the core.  

After an hour, several observations, and reviewing our data, we were ready to draw some conclusions.  We concluded that the lemon juice helped preserve the apple slice the best.  We had several trials set up around the room to insure that our findings were correct.  My smarty pants students concluded that the acid from the lemon helped in the preservation process.  Of course they were correct!  They clearly saw that the slice left exposed to the air browned the quickest, the one in water was protected some what from oxygen, but that the lemon juice worked the best.  We talked about the chemicals within the apple combining with oxygen to form a brown blanket of sorts over the apple to protect it.  However, the vitamin C in the lemon juice binds with oxygen creating a barrier and limited the browning on the apple flesh.

What a great science experiment and activity to usher in fall!  

We hope that you do some fall science soon too! 

Here is a freebie just for you!

 

**I apologize for camera phone pics.  This busy teacher was snapping away and teaching!

Stop by our Simply Sprout Store to purchase the entire kit!

 

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Mommy & Me Mondays: Hands on Math fun

 Math can sometimes be overwhelming to young learners so why not make it fun. Practice basic skills over and over again with a few simple teacher tricks to keep it fun and always interesting. Small tangible items that can be easily picked up by little fingers are perfect for math time, both in and out of the classroom.

Everything from buttons to beads can all be used to keep little ones eager top learn and practice basic math skills like addition and subtraction. My favorite go to objects are glitter pom poms, they are sparkly and soft and come in all sorts of fun colors and sizes.
In celebration of fall we have been practicing addition using apples trees. Bright red pom poms represent the apples and small wooden trees from my local craft store are the perfect way to teach addition skills.
I start off by reciting a word problem to my little one.
" Tommy climbed an apple tree and picked two apples, Suzie climbed another tree and found three apples. How many did they find all together?"
My daughter listens to my words and then uses the pom poms to show the problem. 2 on one tree 3 on the other. This evening she even got out one of her number puzzles to show the numbers of the apples on the trees.

 

One of the best things about little siblings is they always want to do what the older sibling is doing . So why not use that to your advantage. My daughter helped teach her 18month old brother how to point to the pom pom as she counted the numbers. He can't quite say numbers just yet but he did point and say something. Having her teach her brother helps to reinforce those newly learned math skills.




So as your child is eating breakfast in the morning, or waiting for dinner at night, keep a ziploc bag of pom poms, beads, buttons or whatever else on hand and have them work on their addition problems. Change out the wooden cutouts and objects for the season to keep it fresh and fun for them. You will find that their skills will be stronger just by adding in a few minutes into each day to brush up on their math skills. This will help to reinforce math vocabulary and build upon their natural curiosity for learning. Which will help prepare them for the classroom and all the math fun yet to come. While having a little fun at the same time.

Use the freebie below to encourage those new math skills!

 

If you are looking for a way to get a little more math in your day check out our Morning Math Minute set in our Simply Sprout Store. Have your students or children learn about numbers 1 - 30 with these quick math minute activities. 

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Lil Sprouts Book Club: Apples, Apples Everywhere!

 

Did you know that September is National apple month?

What better way to welcome in fall than by learning a little more about the seasons of an apple tree and a purpose for all of those yummy apples. 

 

Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace is one of my favorite books for the classroom. It follows a family as they take a trip to a local apple orchard. It talks about how to pick apples, the different parts of an apple and even includes a secret apple recipe in the back.

We took out daughter Kaitlyn apple picking when she was 2, she had a lot of fun with it. She was amazed that you could walk right up to a tree and get food. This trip helped her to make the connections that food comes from the Earth and not just the store. It also opened up a discussion to start talking about living things and what they need to grow.

So if an apple orchard is close by take the opportunity to go take a visit with your class or you children. Bring a few apples home and have some fun. After reading our book we decided to taste 4 different types of apples and compare them. Kaitlyn decided she liked the red ones the best! Little man liked them all, he just kept eating and eating. We didn't let our apples go to waste, after tasting them we used the other halves to take a closer look at and examine the parts of an apple. You can use the freebie below to help your little ones label and identify the parts of an apple.

For a fun art project let your kids paint with apples using them like stamps on their paper. We took it a step further and placed apple prints onto burlap to make a cute fall banner for our mantle.

This is a fun and easy project that won't take long, just purchase a half yard of burlap from your craft store. Cut into small rectangles about 12inX 6in. Fold in half and then cut from the corner to the center. Put some red or green paint onto a paper plate and have your little one dip their half of an apple in. Apply to the center of the burlap, use a wine cork to add some colorful polka dots. Last use some black paint (I like t-shirt paint because it comes with a fine tip and doesn't require a brush) add seeds and a stem. Attach banners together with ribbon and you are ready to hang. 

The apple cinnamon Glade plug in is in the wall, the apple banner is hung and we have some homemade applesauce cooking on the stove....now all we are waiting for is Fall to arrive!

If you are looking for some fun apple activities for your students, look no further we have some great classroom resources available in our shop so head on over and take a look!

We are being featured at Tatertots & Jello for their weekend wrap-up party!

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