
It’s apple season in our part of Virginia, so I’m thrilled to share fun apple themed activities you can use this fall. From great literature and writing ideas, to fun craftivities you can add with either, I hope you’ll find a fun idea or two in this post.
Apple themed activities in My Part of the Country
In Virginia, we’re just getting ready for apple season, and our family loves visiting local orchards for apple picking and the Apple Butter Festivals that come with it. Just look at all the variety! The kids love face painting, the music, and of course, the corn maze! In fact, many of the area schools travel up for school fieldtrips. The kids always have a wonderful time.


Apple Themed Activities for Your Favorite books
During the apple season, of course Johnny Appleseed is introduced, but along with Johnny, we can teach nonfiction text structures and elements, how to writing with apple pie and apple butter making, and many other reading and math skills with apple themed games and activities. These books by Gail Gibbons is fantastic for demonstrating nonfiction text structures. [Her website] offers lots of information about her life as a writer, a few resources for her books, and her latest publishing. Teachers might use [this video interview] with her as well.
A Day at the Pumpkin Patch & a day at the apple orchard
Another nonfiction favorite of mine is this book by Megan Faulkner. I purchased it in a set with A Day at the Pumpkin Patch. Our students enjoy a trip to the orchard in first grade, and this book is a great follow up to the visit. The photos in the book are well done, and the story follows the sequence of how apple cider is made. It is a great choice for How-to writing or a site visit follow up.
If you are a kindergarten teacher, I have a resource to share with you too. Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg is used pretty often, and I came across this cute Jason Mraz style song using Ten Apples Up on Top. I think it’d be a fun one to teach Kinders. You might even teach a little jig to go with it. After all, movement is great to get the brain ready for learning.
more Apple themed activities for reading and writing
Apple poem of the week
Besides these books, I have created a few apple themed activities too. The first is a poem for beginning readers. You can use it in your centers or for share reading. It’s great for the K/1 kids at the beginning of the year. It comes with teaching posters, a printable book, a single page that can be added to a poetry anthology (I three hole punch mine and put them into 3 prong folders. By the end of the year, your students have a book full of poems to read in the summer.) and in chart form on sentence strips. You can visit my poem of the week posts to learn more about activities you can do with them.
The winner takes the pie apple themed partner play
The second of my reading/writing apple themed activities is more for the middle grades. It is a partner play about going to the apple orchard and picking apples. You might see a comparison to the tortoise and the hare in this one and the lesson…Slow and Steady wins the Race!
The play comes with before, during and after reading activities including an ABC brainstorm page about apple picking, vocabulary, comprehension task cards for discussion, and a post reading writing prompt. Teachers really like my partner plays and find they work well for paired reading in stations.
Crafts and other apple themed activities:
Of course, I took some time to see whether there were free resources on TPT you might enjoy too. Here are four favorites you’ll enjoy. I think they’d work well with any of the books or activities I shared above.
other themed posts you might like:
- PUMPKINS GALORE! A PUMPKIN THEME YOUR STUDENTS WILL LOVE
- ENGAGING ACTIVITIES AND BOOKS ABOUT FALL YOUโLL LOVE
- 8 EFFECTIVE WAYS TO DIFFERENTIATE POEM OF THE WEEK FOR EMERGENT READERS
- 10 FUN WAYS TO USE A POEM OF THE WEEK
Until next time, I hope you and your students enjoy all of the fun apple themed activities I’ve includes as well as all the fun fall has to offer!
2 Responses
What a great post to read! The Apple Butter Festival sounds like so much fun. Going to have to show the boys the Ten Apples Up On Top video. They love that book. Thanks for linking up!
Love Gail Gibbons books!