September Was All About Apples!

Can't believe September is over! Looking back, I understand why the month just flew by! We were just having too much fun in Kindergarten!

Here is a little bit of the fun we had:

We read the story: "The Little Red House with no Doors and no Windows, with a Star Inside". This cute story is always a big hit in my classroom. Students just get into the story so easily, even the most antsy students!
If you never heard of it, this is the story of a little boy who as many other little boys, is bored of playing with his toys, so he asks his mom what can he do. His mother sends him in a quest: to find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside. You can download this story and the puppet characters for FREE. Just click on the picture and head to my TpT store. When you read this story, just make sure that you have a real apple, ready to cut in half to show your students the star inside. No worries, the instructions are included in the file.

After reading this story and eating the apple, my students enjoyed retelling the story using the puppets. We did it a couple of times as everybody wanted to have a turn, of course!
By the end of this activity, they all knew the story so well! And the best part: the comments i received from some parents who enjoyed learning about the story through their children when they got home from school. I can assure you that every single one of my students have mastered the re-telling skill this month!

My class also enjoyed learning about Johnny Appleseed while working on our Johnny Appleseed Interactive Flipbook. Each page includes a fact about this famous American, John Chapman. The written fact is traceable with primary lines and there is also a space to glue the picture that goes along with each fact.

After finishing with the book, students pick a fact to write about for our Johnny Appleseed craft. we used another writing template though. We worked with the prompt: "My favorite fact about Johnny Appleseed". Craft and writing pages are included with the flipbook.

We also had bushels of fun painting these gorgeous apple trees using our thumbs.

 We used the edge of the hand to make the trunk of the tree:

Then we made thumb prints with green paint:

Students picked a color of apple they like (yellow, red, green or brown), and used the back of an unsharpened pencil to add the apples:

To finish it off, we wrote about our favorite apples using the writing prompt shown above. This beautiful project is also included with the Johnny Appleseed Flipbook.

But this is not all... I told you we were busy this month! Students also used their science skills to observe apples and complete our observation journal:

We completed one page each day, observing different things. Does an apple float or sink? How much does it weight? How many inches tall? What about around it? How many seeds does it have?
This was a really great opportunity to use those science tools and experience what a real life scientist does.

Lastly, this month several kindergarten families adopted our classroom through the Education Foundation! We are so tankful for these donations and truly blessed with such generosity and kindness. What better way to say thank you than making something from the heart?

  I printed the card and then I had students use their thumbs to print each apple. while the paint was still fresh I sprinkled a little of white glitter to make them shiny. Once it was dry, I used markers to draw the leaves and stems, and then made the eyes and smiles with fabric paint (you can also use a marker). Turned out cute, right?

If you would like this card, it's editable (just type the name of the family or person who adopted your class) and the best part, it's free!
Just click here:

A Bushel of Thanks


Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this post!