The apple bulletin board full of kid-made art is perfect for a preschool apple theme! I don’t tend to go for fancy bulletin boards. In fact, I’d much rather use children’s artwork and writing for my bulletin board ideas. This apple-themed bulletin board was easy to make, and I loved that the kids helped me put it together!
How to Make Apple Hand Prints with Kids
At least once a month, I like to use the preschoolers’ hand prints to make art. Hand print art is fun for the kids, parents love receiving it, and I love using that art in the children’s end of the year portfolios. These apple hand prints will be the September page in the kids’ portfolios.
Making the apple hand prints were pretty easy and we only used a few materials! Please keep in mind that I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post. I grabbed some tempera paints and paintbrushes, then called the children over one at a time. I asked each child what color apple she wanted — red, yellow, or green.
The palm of the hand served as the main part of the apple, so it was painted whichever color the child chose. Then I dabbed a little bit of brown paint on the bottom half of the thumb, and that was the apple’s stem.
Once everything was dry, I cut the apples out and backed them with construction paper. I really wanted to display the apple hand prints, which inspired this apple bulletin board.
How to Create an Apple Bulletin Board
As I mentioned earlier, I just like to use the children’s art and writing for bulletin boards. I’m not huge on exclusively teacher-made bulletin boards because that takes the focus off displaying the kids’ work.
I decided to make an exception in creating the tree for the bulletin board. I grabbed some brown butcher paper, cut it into strips, and crumpled up the strips. The crumpling gave the paper a bit of texture, kind of like the bark of a tree. Well, if you squint hard enough! 🙂
Once the tree was up, I added hand print leaves (just green hand prints the kids made for me). Then the apples were added, and I labeled it “apples for the teacher”. It was fun to show the children the class’ apple tree made out of their hand prints!
During centers, I took the children’s dictations about their apple hand prints. The dictations will be used in the end of the year portfolios, along with the apple hand prints and a pictures of the children taken on the first day.
Apple Theme Preschool Lesson Plans
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for classroom teachers and home preschool families so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
This set includes active hands-on learning ideas, book suggestions, and the following printables:
- Apple Number Cards (0-35)
- “Counting Apples” emergent reader
- “I See Apples” emergent reader
- Apple Letters (uppercase and lowercase in both red and green)
- Apple Life Cycle Cards (in color and b/w)
- Label the Apple Diagram (in color and b/w) with labeling cards
- Apple Pattern Cards
- Put the Apples on the Tree Game Mat
- Editable cover and pages for a class apple book
Get Your Preschool Apple Lesson Plans
Preschool Apple Lesson Plans for Classroom Teachers
Apple Preschool Lesson Plans for Home Preschool Families
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers
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