Fun apple activities for kids using our five senses, simple science, books, and more. Read now to grab your FREE Apple exploration printable kit!
Apple Activities for Early Learning Exploration
I don’t know about where you are, but around here, the weather has cooled down significantly. When the weather changes, I immediately think of fall. I love fall! It’s a nice break from the hot weather; it’s time for cozy, warm clothes and the beautiful changes to occur.
I especially love the fun you can have in the fall. You can explore outside and go on nature walks. In addition, you can visit the pumpkin patch to pick out that perfect pumpkin. Or, you can go to the apple orchard to pick ripe apples during harvest.
To get my son excited for fall, I wanted to teach him about apples before we visited the apple orchard. Apple activities ensued because he is starting his last year of preschool and absolutely loves to learn! When I asked him if he wanted to learn about apples, his response was “Mommy, I know about apples already!” I told him we would investigate apples and learn new things about them.
To set up for our apple activities, I bought four different kinds of apples from the market. I chose whatever was available at the time (Gala, Spartan, Granny Smith, and Red Delicious). You could choose the varieties that you wish.
I created a Preschool Apple Exploration printable that would help us record the information we found during our exploration. I added it to our Apple activities. You can grab these for FREE later in this post!
Apple Books
First, we started our exploration by reading our fall books together. We read about where apples come from and how they grow on apple trees. Then we discovered that many different types of apples grow on other trees and that look different. Finally, we discussed that apples have various parts and that they can be used in many ways for different things.
I feel it is beneficial to read books at the start of any unit to pre-load children with the information they will need to feel successful and ready to learn during future lessons and activities. Nonfiction reading is essential when doing lessons like this. There was a lot of learning going on, and we hadn’t even started our hands-on exploration yet!
Using Our Senses to Explore Apples
We started our apple exploration by using our five senses to learn about apples. This was the perfect opportunity to teach my son about his five senses, what they are, and how he can use them to taste, feel, smell, hear, and look at apples.
We began by looking at an apple, and I helped my son use the words he knows, as well as new vocabulary to describe it. First, we tasted the apple and listened to the sound it made when we took bites. Then, we heard the “crunching” and “chomping” sounds it made. Finally, we smelled the inside of the apple, its flesh, and felt the wetness inside. The apple smelled sweet!
Learning About Apples in New Ways
The next part was tricky, but it was a great learning opportunity to add to our apple activities. I had my son hold the apple and compare its size with other objects. For writing, I had him complete the sentence “My apple is as small as ____” to which he responded with different small items. Then, I helped him think of objects that are relative in size to the apple, such as his ball or an orange.
I used the next part, “My apple is as heavy as ___” to teach him about weight. He said he thought the apple was “so heavy,” so we talked about other things that are not very big, but are heavy to hold, such as books or onions.
We cut an apple open to discuss its parts. Even though we had eaten a ton of apples before, we hadn’t talked about what was inside before. Not surprisingly, my son knew that there were seeds and a stem. I pointed out the core, flesh, and skin of the apple.
We talked about how apple trees grow from apple seeds. We used a labeled diagram anchor chart with the words for reference. Learning all about fall through hands-on activities like this makes learning fun!
Simple Apple Science
For our simple science project, I asked my son to formulate a hypothesis about whether he thought an apple would sink or float in water. He took no time at all to respond with, “It will sink. It is heavy!”
He was surprised when we put the apple in and it floated! I explained to him that the air inside the apple’s core makes it less dense than water. Thus, making it float!
Apple Taste Test
The apple taste test was the part my son was anticipating the most. He wanted to eat ALL the apples! We started by examining each apple and putting them in order by size on the table. Apple #1 was a Granny Smith apple, Apple #2 was a Spartan apple, Apple #3 was a Gala apple, and Apple #4 was a Red Delicious apple.
First, he looked and felt the skin on the apples. He used crayons to colour in the apples on the printable to match. I was surprised when he noticed that some apples are a mix of two or more colours. He even saw some minor brown bruises.
He tasted each apple, and I helped him come up with words to describe how they tasted. We used words like sweet and sour, crisp and tart, and juicy and bitter. I recorded his ideas next to the coloured apples. This was a great vocabulary lesson!
After tasting each apple, I asked him which was his favourite, and his response surprised me. He chose a Granny Smith apple, which was sour and tart, but one we hadn’t tried together before. I was thrilled to discover a new healthy snack!
Apple Stamping with Paint
My son loves art, so when I told him the paint was coming out, he was very excited! I wanted to show him that apples could be used to make art as well, with apple stamping.
I cut three different apples in half and placed them on a plate with red, green, and yellow (apple colours) sparkle paint. We started with red, and he made three apple stamps on his large apple shape cut-out. Next, we used green paint, followed by yellow.
He did a great job of spacing out the apple stamps. I remarked to him that he made a pattern of red and green stamps!
It was a little bit tricky to hold the apples. I found the greatest trick after the fact: putting forks in the backs of the apples so that they make a handle. I will be doing this next time!
More Fun Apple Activities
Grab the Apple Fun Pack!
If you want a fully immersive Apple Fun Pack, these activities cover everything from science to math to literacy and everything in between. You will find apple crafts, apple science, STEM activities, read-aloud book companions, life cycle mini books, apple feelings charts, vocabulary, writing, and more!
FREE Apple Activities: Exploration Pack
If you would like to grab the Apple Exploration pack for FREE, click the image below. This pack includes the 2-page exploration activity used in this post (in color and black & white), as well as the headers for creating displays.
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