Erupting Apple Volcano, Yummy Crockpot Applesauce, Aluminum Foil Hats, & More!

Your students will love creating an apple volcano with this no mess recipe! You’ll find all kinds of ideas for incorporating Science into your ELA & Math instructional blocks today on the blog!

We have had so much fun today. I can now say that I truly love teaching kids about Johnny Appleseed.  In the past I’ve done a few activities to celebrate Johnny Appleseed but never enough. I just didn’t really enjoy teaching about apples. Well… all of that has now changed. 🙂

I compiled everything I could possibly think of that the students would love doing this week into one really fun and inexpensive resource. Teachers, you can grab one by clicking on the product cover below. (This would be perfect for homeschool groups!)

When the kids entered the room, they got right to work coloring their baskets and placing the apples in the correct order across the top. I had a sample ready for students to reference as needed.

We started this morning by reviewing our nonfiction book about Johnny Appleseed. Corinne from Chirp Graphics is such a talented clip artist. I just love her illustrations and how they really add to everything we do in my classroom. You can find her store here: Chirp Graphics on TPT .

 

(You will have everything you need to put together your own class book in color or black & white if you purchase my resource on TPT.)

The students were told to go back to their seats and draw what they had learned about Johnny Appleseed.

I just love kindergarten drawings. Aren’t they adorable? 🙂 I went around asking students what they learned and they were able to give me several facts about Johnny Appleseed, such as his real name (John Chapman) and that he was featured on a United States postage stamp.

Later we got out the craft that we started yesterday and added an aluminum foil pot to his head using the included hat template.

They turned out so cute!

While the kids were working this morning, my assistant and I were busy peeling apples and getting everything ready for our applesauce. It was a huge hit. 🙂

The recipe included in the resource is the best one I’ve tried. The apples didn’t get so dark and it wasn’t too cinnamon-y.

I usually have several kids say they don’t like it, but this time they all seemed to think it was good.

I like using these little plastic cups. You really don’t even need to mess with spoons. A tablespoon works nicely for divying it out evenly among your students. Each child received a cupful which was a few tablespoons each. We had enough for more than 20 cups.

The kids followed along and colored in the picture to show how they felt about our crockpot applesauce. I also had them respond to the question of whether or not they liked the applesauce by writing “yes” or “no”.

While our applesauce was cooking we prepared for our “Erupting Apple Volcano”. Students filled out one of the printables in the resource with the ingredients needed and later filled out what happened to the apple. This was by far the simplest “experiment” I’ve ever done with a class and it was greeted with plenty of “oohs!” & “ahhhhhs!”.

The kids were begging for me to do it again and again. I was able to use the same apple again with my writing group during our extension time. (Just in case you are in a similar situation.)

Tomorrow we will be making homemade apple pie play dough and working on our individual “I Can Count” readers. The resource comes with the cutest fall themed alphabet mats. I KNOW my students will love practicing letter formation with it!

I’ll be back again this week with an update of how the play dough turned out.

If you haven’t read my last post with an introduction to our Johnny Appleseed week, go here:

Johnny Appleseed Craft, Fingerprint Apples, & More on Pencils to Pigtails’ blog

If you want to grab the resource, click on any of the product covers below.

Happy Teaching and Mommy-ing until tomorrow!