the apple orchard (continued)

This week we have continued to connect our experience at Chapin's apple orchard to our growth as writers, readers, and community members.

We started a class teaching book using what we already know about apple orchards before we went on our field trip. Using skills we're developing in our independent work as writers- picturing a topic in our mind and using pictures and words to give information about that one topic- the children drew pictures and added labels for the final two pages of our class teaching book.

Picture our time at Chapin's;

What did we see? 
What did we experience? 
What else can we teach about the apple orchard?

Colbie shared that honey bees are important workers on the orchard. We saw honey bees and we learned about honey bees. What should we draw or write in our teaching books? Honey bees and apple blossoms!

 

 

 

 

 

We have shared information about apples and workers. But, what happens after you pick the apples? What else did we see at the orchard? What other information is important to put in our teaching book? We did a lot of work with the cider press and discussed how we use apples to make different things to drink and eat.

In their writing children used arrows to show how to twist an apple to pick it off a branch- something we learned at the orchard. They used dashed lines to show apples going into the cider press and drew a picture of someone pushing down on the press- making apple cider!

 

 

 

On Tuesday we voted for what we wanted to make with our apples, using the morning message to organize our hopes for apple bread, apple pie, or apple butter. Reading the pictures and the words the children engaged with the morning message by putting their name (written on a sticky note) under their choice. We counted and compared. Apple pie had the most votes, apple butter had the least.

What do you think we need to make apple pie? We shared what we thought we needed to make apple pie. On Wednesday I invited the children to use pictures and beginning sounds to show an ingredient on a sticky note.

The following day (Thursday) we used some of their sticky notes to represent our list of ingredients. We used our list to guide our measuring, mixing, and making of apple pie.

 

 

Making our apple pies!

We checked our list, making sure we had all of the ingredients we needed. We measured and counted. At the end of our process, when asked what symbol we should cut into the top crust, the children excitedly said a heart!

The academics of making apple pie;

reading the morning message (our three choices)
making a choice and taking initiative- engaging with the morning message
writing your name on a sticky note and rereading your choice (vote)
counting and comparing how many
using pictures and words to answer the question, "What do we need (ingredients) to make apple pie?"
using numbers, words, and pictures to check our list of ingredients
using math words; measurement, top (crust that is over the apples) and bottom (crust that is under the apples)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday I introduced a new poem with a repeating word (apple) and sight words. We noticed the rhyming words in our poem. We found and circled the repeating word, apple. We read the poem together and brave readers took turns reading the poem to the community; pointing to and reading the words using what they knew about the poem, the pictures, and beginning sounds to guide their reading.

 

 

the apple orchard

On Friday we visited Chapin's Apple Orchard. It was an exciting morning full of rich information and juicy apples. We had a tour of the working orchard and learned about how apples grow, the age of the apples we ate, and observed trees at different stages. We also learned how to read an apple's story by noticing what part of the apple was facing the sun and what part of the apple was in the shade.

We walked on the paths with our wagon of apples, helped to make cider in an apple press, and learned the parts of a bee's body through an interactive song.

Thank you to our many chaperones for joining us for this learning experience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Before we went. . .

We started a class teaching book about an apple orchard. Many of the children have visited Chapin's before with their families and had a lot of information to share. Our collaborative work connected to the teaching points in our writing workshop; writers picture a topic in their mind and use pictures and words to teach about that one topic. 

We pictured apple orchards in our minds and shared around the oval. We used our reflections to develop our book. We will finish our class teaching book of the orchard on Monday, now using what we gathered from our field trip to write our last two pages and add more detail.

The first page has pictures of the big, red barn at Chapin Orchard and pictures of apples and apple trees. It's important to look for the sign; apples this way!

On the second page we have pictures of a tractor with a wagon of apples in the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




A is for apple. . .

I introduced a short apple poem full of words the children can read. It provided a beginning letter/sound, rhyming words, and an invitation to draw a round and sweet apple. During morning meeting the children read the poem together and some bravely read it on their own in front of their peer audience. Each child used a sticky note to write their name and draw an apple to go with our poem. They used the words from the poem to illustrate a round red or green apple.

 

 

After we went. . .

Going to the orchard provides an authentic and meaningful COUNTING, COMPARING, and GRAPHING opportunity!

When we returned from the orchard we fueled up with apple cider donuts and closely examined our picked apples. I asked children to notice what the apples looked like, the visible attributes.

What is the same or different about our apples? 
How could we sort our apples?

Their (brilliant!) noticings and ideas for sorting;

Some of the apples are slanted on top and some aren't.

I notice that some of the apples have long stems and some have short stems. 

Some apples don't have any stems and some do.

Some have been facing the sun more. Their skin is red or sunburnt like we learned!

All of the apples have red and green spots.

They are different sizes, some apples are really big and some are small and some are medium.

I listed their noticings and we voted on one way to sort our apples. The children voted to go with Sebby's idea; sorting our apples by size. We didn't use measuring tools to determine big, medium, or small. We used a visual, finding one apple that looked small and one that looked big and using those as our comparisons for sorting. Later in the year we will introduce measuring tools.

Once the children worked together to sort our apples we counted how many in each group. We talked about showing this information with numbers or with a graph. A graph is a visual way to show how many and to compare how many.

This was our first time thinking about graphs. We used a bar graph to show how many apples in each group and talked why it is called a bar graph. This is one way to show and compare. We talked about how to read our graph; What information is this graph giving you? What do you notice about this graph?