Fall is my absolute favorite time of year! I love how the days are sunny, but the air is crisp and cool. I love everything pumpkin and apple. Even though I know winter is just around the corner (my least favorite season), fall makes me happy!
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One of my favorite things about fall are the fun activities we get to do at school! Every year, my mom comes to school and makes homemade crockpot applesauce with my class. 🙂 You can check out how it went last year {HERE}.
This year, the lady who usually supplies us with apples picked from her trees lost most of them in a hard freeze. Sad. 🙁
But, my little kiddos stepped up and they brought their own apples from home! It actually turned out kind of cool since all their apples were different. Yay! 🙂
Now. If you haven’t read my previous post, you might be wondering how this is related to those dreaded Common Core standards.
I’m going to admit something here. Sometimes, I just don’t care. They are kids and kids should have fun at school and making applesauce with their own two hands IS fun. I am a big proponent of doing crafty things and cutting with scissors and gluing things when necessary. I know. I’m a rebel. But it feels so good!
Here are some pictures of kids having fun making applesauce.
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| We used my fancy crank peeler to peel the apples… |
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| and it turns them into apple curls! Fun! |
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| Apple bits go into the crock pot… |
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| with sugar and cinnamon… |
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| lemon juice and water! |
But I understand the world we live in. I know that, at any moment, an unannounced observation could happen and my peer evaluator could walk in and judge my every move. So, I try to have a plan. If nothing else, a back-up plan.
So, the plan is, while we make the applesauce we also write awesome poems about apples using our 5 senses. We use a graphic organizer to record those senses and then make our poems. Just to show off a little, we write the poems on die cut apples and display them in the room. 🙂
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| Isn’t he working hard?? |
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| They put their poems on a die-cut apple, colored them and hung them up! |
We had a blast AND they wrote some great poems to boot.
My favorite quote from the day: “I love applesauce, but this is the BEST. APPLESAUCE. EVER.”
If you think you might want to have some apple-icious fun with your class, you can download the graphic organizer and the recipe for applesauce from my TPT store….it’s free! Just click the picture below.
What’s your favorite fall activity to do with your class?
Love your post!! Honest and right on with where I am at! 🙂 Thanks for the freebie, too!
~Deb
Crafting Connections
I meant to come back on my laptop and comment then got sick and forgot. Cause … that's what fall is to me. Getting sick. How can someone be allergic to October? Every year, though. Like clockwork. There's a quote from Anne (Green Gables) about being grateful to live in a world with Octobers. Wish I agreed cause it is a fun month with Halloween and changing colors. If you live somewhere with changing colors.
Anyway. This looks like a FUN learning activity with the kids. Cause learning SHOULD BE FUN. And tasty whenever possible. 😉