Apple *LOVE*

You might not know this about me, but I taught Kindergarten for for 5 years and first grade for 8 years before that.  Oh, how I miss being able to spend a long glorious fall teaching with all things apples!  My apple love was born as a child growing up in Kentucky climbing, building forts in, and snacking from the apple trees in our backyard! It was rekindled many years later living and teaching in a rural area literally surrounded by apple trees!  When the apples came ready, I had more than I knew what to do with! So...when life gives you apples...make apple butter! And I did, again and again and again! My crock pot ran day and night! I made apple butter at home and at school.  There's nothing more comforting than the smell of apples and cinnamon, and my kids loved it!  I gave away apple butter to anyone who walked by my house!  Ok, anyone who even looked in the direction of my house! But I'm dreamily digressing...

Now that I teach second grade, I squeeze in as much apple fun as I can, but I have to tell you that it gets harder each year!  Our schedule is so tight with assessments, benchmark testing, mandatory computerized programs, new expectations, and adjusting to Common Core, all of which are extremely valuable to me, but it leaves little or no time for much else.  It's that "much else" part that is one of the things I love so much about teaching!  So, my goal is always to find ways to teach the standards that also gives my kiddos a creative outlet, be it in their thinking or in their "doing". 

Here's a little of our apple thinking and doing from the past few weeks.

Every year I have my students make these little apple cores to display their friendly letters.  In past years we've written thank you letters to our staff.  This year, after reading lots of different books about apples and Johnny Appleseed, my students wrote persuasive letters asking him questions and trying to persuade him to start wearing shoes!  This little friend is wondering if Johnny is a vegetarian!

We created a chart of apple words and their synonyms, then students wrote and illustrated them on  apple shapes.

We learned about collective nouns and and the meaning of "keeping your eyes peeled" for them all week.  When students spotted one they got to write it on a sticky note and add it to our chart.

I just realized I left off the definition of a collective noun!

In our reading groups we read about apple trees and discussed nonfiction text features and organization. 

Still keeping our eyes peeled!

Our writing focus for the quarter is on writing an opinion.  My students love the Henry and Mudge books and next week we have Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night in our reading series. We talked about Henry and Mudge's relationship and what qualities make a good pet. Students then wrote paragraphs giving their opinion on which animal they feel makes the best pet.  For some Friday afternoon fun and because one of my friends asked "What are we doing to celebrate Mr. Appleseed's birthday?" :0)  We made these apple trees from my Apple-icious September Writing Craftivities unit (the apple core writing activity is also included) and published and displayed them.

Here is our bulletin board display!

You can find this *Apple Love* here:

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Do you celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day?
Here's a fun little writing craftivity that makes an adorable display.
There are two versions.  What's in Johnny's Knapsack? and
Who is Johnny Appleseed? This little ditty includes a 3-day lesson plan,
graphic organizers and lesson visuals.  both in color and black and white
student versions. I've also included 2 styles of handwriting lines
and patterned knapsack patterns that I copy right on to construction paper!

I'm off to watch some required tutorials for getting a document camera
in my classroom!  Yay!

Happy apple season!