Apple Activities for Preschool + Growing Apple Seeds

Including apple activities for toddlers in your homeschool is a great way teach your young children about apple life cycles with these fun activities perfect for fall. Whether you want try your hand at some apple science experiments, make an apple tree craft from tissue paper, or just love apples, this is the perfect fall unit to celebrate the new season.

Fun Preschool Apple Theme Activities

An apple unit is the perfect them for Fall. There are so many fun apple activities for toddlers, preschool apple activities, and fun apple crafts that you can incorporate into your homeschool. You and your little ones will love these fun themed activities as great ideas to use during apple season.

All Things Apple Kids Activities

Whether you have paper apples, real apples, circle time, or your dining room table, here are some easy apple crafts and fun ideas to include your little ones in what you are learning.

• Apple prints activity – Take an apple, cut it up, and make some simple shapes. Little hands will enjoy making different shapes on white paper using the apple’s natural juice. All you need is an apple and a piece of paper!
• Apple garland – String up dried apples to create a pretty and nice smelling apple garland.
• Apple Art – Paint with apples by using the cut up apple stamp to dip in paint and create different designs and shapes for your own apple collages. Or use your apple stamps with fabric paint to make prints on a t-shirt.
• Sensory Bins – Grab a few little bins and create an apple sensory bin to help improve fine motor skills. You can use dried oatmeal or rice died green, plastic apples, and apple pie spice seasoning or cinnamon sticks for a fun sensory play experience.
• Apple Scented Play dough – Make your own apple scented playdough with some natural ingredients to bring in all the senses of your little learner! Cloud dough is another favorite in our home and could easily be spiced to smell like apple pie too!
• Apple Seed Craft – This simple 1-page craft is fun and easy way to introduce your kids to the life cycle of apples. Be sure to grab your FREE copy below!

Learning About Apples in Your Homeschool

These are some great concepts and themes to discuss when you are learning about real apples. 

Apple Season

Fall season is the best time of year to learn about apples because it’s also considered apple season or apple picking time. If you live near an apple orchard,  this is the perfect time to visit one for a field trip.

Most of these places give lessons to kids about how apples start on their trees and end up in the local grocery store. Your kids will also enjoy learning about different types of apples.

Apple Trees

Learning about apple trees themselves can be pretty interesting for kids. They can learn about the life cycle of an apple and its trees and how the process works season after season to produce more apples. 

Apple Seeds

Learning about the different parts of an apple is a fun way to study apple seeds. Just like any other life cycle, seeds play a major role in a tree’s growth, the type of apples it grows, and so on. Apple seeds also make for some pretty fun apple activities. 

Apple Foods

Apples are more than just a healthy snack to promote healthy eating. Make learning even more fun by cooking with apples! You can make a number of easy foods using apples such as apple sauce, homemade apple pie, or even fried apples to go over oatmeal. Apple cider is a favorite and in our home during the cooler fall weather. Enjoy the savory smell of apples as you heat it up a simple recipe on the stove, then enjoy the warm drink on a cool day or around a campfire with friends and family.

Types of Apples

There are many different colors of apples, which could be a topic all its own. Talk about the variety of apples, the different types, sizes, apple shapes, and even colors. Buy several of each type and let your little learners have fun apple sorting, before cutting them open for some of your favorite apple activities.

Apple Life Cycle MEGA Pack

Our Apple Life Cycle MEGA Pack includes apple-themed activities for kids PreK-2nd grade. With more than 180 pages, this printable pack is the perfect addition to your fall studies, and makes apple lesson plans a cinch! This MEGA pack is filled with activities to make learning fun! Our mega pack covers several different subject areas, including science, early math skills, beginning and emergent reading, and more!

Apple Books for Young Children

Want some fun books you can read together about apples? Reading books about apples is a great way to introduce this theme and improve their literacy skills. Here are some of our favorite children’s books perfect to add to your apple themed collection!

Apples for Everyone by Jill Esbaum

How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro

Apples by Gail Gibbons

Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

Pinkalicious: Apples, Apples, Apples!Apples, Apples Everywhere! Learning About Apple HarvestsApple Picking Day! (Step into Reading)Ten Apples Up On Top!The Apple Pie TreeAmelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie

More Apple Books

Another amazing read for young and older children alike is The Value of Love: The Story of Johnny Appleseed, a favorite book from my childhood. Your children will learn that Johnny Appleseed took thousands of seeds into the frontier and started orchards wherever he could. His goal was to bring apples to the west so that everyone could enjoy them.

Be sure to check out Johnny Appleseed MEGA Pack for some additional fantastic fun!

Growing Apple Seeds

After reading about Johnny Appleseed, you can do some seed sprouting of apple seeds of your own. This can also lead to doing some research on how to germinate apple seeds.  If you want to learn more about germinating and growing apple seedlings, you should check out these links:

• Growing New Fruit Plant Trees From Seed
• Growing Apple Trees From Seed
• What is the best way to germinate apple seeds?

Hands-On Apple Science Experiment

Growing (or starting) your own apple sprout is a super fun apple activity that kids of all ages can enjoy. All you need are some apples with seeds inside to harvest those seeds for growing. Then gather a few supplies you will probably have around the house and you’re ready to move on to the seed growing phase.

Supply List

• plastic bag
• wet paper towel
• apple seeds

Instructions:

Put the folded paper towel into the bag and have your children add the seeds. You can add as many seeds as you like as long as it doesn’t get too crowded.

About a week later, you may start to notice apple seeds that have sprouted because it will have a little tiny shoot coming out. While the apple seeds may not turn into actual apple trees trees, the main goal is to learn about nature. 

If you are actually trying to get a fruit-bearing apple tree, starting from seed is not the best bet. To create an apple tree with a particular kind of apple, branches are usually grafted from a parent tree.  

If you want a fruit-bearing tree, you’d be better off buying a young apple tree. But if you just want to learn about nature, then grow some apple seedlings in this fun experiment. Your children will have so much fun experimenting with just trying to grow their own apple tree.

Download your own Apple Craft

This simple printable apple craft is perfect for fall or studying the letter A. Print out the free printables, cut up some red apples (green or yellow apples will do too), and glue seeds to the apple shape—so easy, but a great addition to any lesson!