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How do you like them apples?

by Early Math Counts

During the fall, a plentiful harvest and the low cost of apples provides us with a great theme to introduce to the children – APPLES!  When I taught kindergarten, we used apples as a means to explore all sorts of mathematical and scientific concepts.  For the month of September, let’s explore Apples together.

Graphing-

Make sure to purchase a variety of apples; big and small, red, green and yellow.  Place them in a large bowl and ask the children to sort them according to size or color (Don’t expect young children to consider two aspects of something simultaneously; i.e. color and size).  Once sorted into groups, help children to create a graph that represents how many of each group.  Enjoy the apples at snack time.


Singing-

Have you ever heard the song “Way up High in the Apple Tree”?  I have sung this song with young children for years and years.  I don’t know who wrote it or where it came from (if I did, I would cite it!).  It goes like this:

“Way up high in the apple tree (hold hands up and wiggle fingers)

4 little apples smiled at me (hold up 2 fingers on each hand and wiggle them)

I shook that tree as hard as I could  (pretend to shake that tree)

and 2 fell out….mmm, mmm good.  (Show 2 fingers falling down and leave 2 fingers up).”

Follow up the verse with the question, “If there were 4 apples and 2 fell out, how many are left?”.

Repeat the song with different quantities of apples and different numbers falling out.

I wish I could sing it for you so you could hear the tune….I will explore that as a possibility for another time.

3 Replies to “How do you like them apples?”

  1. I will have the children do this project on what kind of apples they like and have the kids write it on the board.

    1. If you write it on a large piece of paper, you can hang it in the classroom throughout the month as evidence of your exploration of apples.

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