Hello Friends,
One of the projects that I love to do is the creation of Apple Tree murals. I use these as an assessment of their knowledge of seasons.
Part of our kindergarten science/social studies curriculum is the study of the seasons. I link this to our Apple unit. I love to begin this unit with "The Apple Pie Tree" by Zoe Hall. This is such a fun book and covers most everything that I want to teach in our Apple unit.
I also love "An Apple a Day" by Melvin Berger. I purchased this as a big book many years ago. I am not sure if it is still in print, but I love it because it covers the social studies part of our unit which is what happens to an apple after it is harvested. It describes being loaded in a truck and taken to a market or storage facility and then sold as apple products.
We do all the little books inside my "Apples, Let's Make a Book" Science packet, but I am not going to share pictures from those books as I am sure I have already shared them! I really like doing the books inside this resource, though, because it covers all aspect of Apples from growing to marketing...
I like to use our Apple Tree Seasons murals as an assessment for Seasons. It does take some set up time, but it is worth it! I set up the tables while they are at Music so that when they come into the classroom, all they have to do it put on their paint shirts and start working! I already have the paint poured and placed in the proper season's table. I sketch the trunk of the tree so that they have a baseline in which to paint their tree. If I did not do this, we would have some really TINY trees or trees that were so large, the branches would come off the paper! I like for them to use SMALL sponges to paint because sponges seem to work better for larger projects. Plus I think sponges allow my kiddos to be more precise in their painting. This is the ONLY thing I prepare for them; the rest is up to them. I put them into groups and tell them that they have to make a plan as to how they are going to paint their tree i.e. who is going to do what part and make sure that EVERYBODY gets to participate.
Here is what the tables look like before they start:
Here they are painting their murals:
Here are their words describing the Apple Tree seasons:
And here is the finished product!
We also sort and graph apples and taste test them, of course!
And finally, we talk about the parts of the apple and make this cute apple project... This is not a new idea, but I love to do it because when finished, it shows me that they understand that an apple has many parts and those parts serve a function in the life cycle of the apple.
So that's it for now, my friends! Time to get started on Saturday morning chores!
Until next time!
Blessings,