I’m incredibly excited to team up with some wonderful mamas and teachers for weekly #playfulpreschool fun! Each week, we’ll be sharing ideas for themed preschool lesson plans. To kick start this collaboration, we’re focusing on a preschool apple theme. My contribution is apple math activities focused on apple taste testing, graphing, and sorting.
apple taste test and apple math
Materials
Apples – red delicious, granny smith, yellow delicious
Construction paper
Washable tempera paint – red, yellow, green
Glass beads – red, yellow, green
Taste Test
I love taste-testing apples with my preschoolers! It’s a great way to integrate real, meaningful learning in a fun way. The kiddos get to use all of their senses to explore the apples, which jump starts so much learning.
Have the children try green apples (granny smith), red apples (red delicious), and yellow apples (yellow delicious). Encourage them to try at least one bite of each. My preschoolers usually gobble up all of the apples after the taste test, so the leftovers make a great snack. Once everyone has tried the apples, take a quick poll to determine each child’s favorite apple.
If you’re working with just one or two kids, perhaps they could poll their friends and family members. This way, there will be more information to graph and learn from.
Graphing
For this activity, have the children use their favorite apple to paint apple prints! Cut a red apple, a green apple, and a yellow apple in half. Those who like green apples paint the green half with green paint, then stamp it onto a white piece of paper. Have the other children do the same with the red and yellow apple halves.
Once the apple prints are dry, cut the apple prints out. Some children might be interested in cutting their own prints out, too. Make sure each child has an apple print representative of her favorite apple!
Write color words on construction paper, then place the words on the top of a pocket chart (or a large piece of paper). Have each child come up and add his apple in the appropriate place. During this time, get the conversation started – “We have 6 red apples so far. I wonder how many more will be added. What do you think?”
Once the graph has been fully assembled, get the kiddos involved in analyzing it! My students are generally VERY happy to talk about the class apple graph. If that’s not the case with your children, ask some thoughtful questions. Some examples:
- How many apples are under red/green/yellow? What does that mean?
- Which kind of apples are the most liked? Which are liked the least?
- What else do you notice about our apple graph?
- How many more apples are under red?
If you and the children aren’t up for painting, you can use glass jewels to graph the favorite apples!
The Learning
This apple math activity packs in a lot of learning for preschoolers! Below are some points touched upon:
- Exploration of apples through the 5 senses
- Descriptive vocabulary
- Counting
- Comparing more and less
- One-to-one correspondence (especially if you add numbers to your graph)
- “Reading” graphs and making observations
- Vocabulary about comparisons (more, less, equal, same, most, least)
#playfulpreschool Apple Theme
As I mentioned earlier, I’m so excited to share themed preschool lessons each week with the Playful Preschool team!
Plan your learning week with Preschool Apple Theme Activities from the Playful Preschool Education Team:
SOCIAL STUDIES From Orchard to Table. Watch and Make at The Educators’ Spin On It SCIENCE Examining Apple Parts, How Does It Grow, Sink/Float at Little Bins For Little Hands MUSIC & MOVEMENTApple Hop at Learning 2 Walk MATH Counting Apples with Preschoolers: Real-Life Math at Life Over C’s Apple Math Fun in Preschool – Tasting and Graphing Apples at Fun-A-Day WRITING Scented Playdough Pre-Writing Activity at Preschool Toolbox LITERACY Alphabet Activity: Apple Tree Letter Matching at Mom Inspired LifeAlphabet Learning: Apple Stamping at Growing Book by Book SENSORY Applesauce Dough for Sensory Play at Still Playing School COOKING How to Make Homemade Apple Pie – Cooking with Preschoolers at Powerful Mothering SCIENCE Apple Oxidation Experiment at Raising Lifelong Learners CRAFT Paper Plate Apple Craft at The Kennedy Adventures
For more apple-y goodness, check out my other apple posts and follow my Apple Theme Pinterest board.
What apple math fun will you get up to this month? Have you taste tested apples and graphed the results before? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below!
I LOVE this stamp and graph activity. What an awesome hands on way to connect art with math!
Thanks so much, Amanda! Of course, there’s lots of free art with the apples too. The kiddos love seeing everyone’s favorite apples.
love stamping! well my kids love anything that involves paint full stop.. lol
we are going to have to try this this weekend for sure!
Oh yes, most of my preschoolers (and my school-aged son) love painting with anything and everything!
I love the fact that you have an Apple Pinterest Board! There are so many fun things to do with apples and one of my favorites its to graph them. Love the ideas for stamping the apples first. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Kim! We always have a blast with apples in preschool, so an Apple Pinterest board is a must for me! I’ve graphed apples in many different ways, but this was the first time we delved into stamping and then graphing.
I really love how you integrated math and art! I’m thinking I could do this with my preschooler at home if I gathered different amounts of each apple type and then we graphed those amounts. Thanks for sharing!
I think that’s a great idea, Danielle! Graphing and exploring apples always seems to be a hit with the little ones I work with.
We haven’t done any graphing yet so I can’t wait to do this with my kids. Thanks for the ideas!
Thanks, Jodie! Let me know how it goes when you do! 🙂
We love math activities and hope to do some more graphing again! What a great idea to include different types of ideas and sensory play for graphing and counting! Very hands-on!
Thanks, Sarah! We love hands-on (and mouths-on) activities around here! 🙂
My preschooler loves anything involving paint so this would be right up her alley. I enjoy the visual of the counting the apples and grouping them.
Thanks, Natasha! The kiddos were really into moving the apples all around the chart, too. We ended up sorting and counting and graphing multiple times.
Love sorting, graphing, and playing with apples (and colors)! Fun post that teaches important skills! Good job!
Thanks so much for the kind words!! 🙂
Adorable apple stamps! We did that last week, but didn’t incorporate them into a graph…will have to try that this week. THanks for the great idea!
This is GENIUS. I have just started graphing and never thought of incorporating stamping.
I love this idea! We did apple prints a couple weeks ago, but it would totally be worth it to do it again for this fun activity!