Apples A-peel To Me

Wow, after homeschool class I always wish there was more time in the day!  Today we became pomologists - fruit scientists - as we explored all aspects of the apple. When kids first arrived, some of them painted using the apple stamps I had put out: apples cut horizontally produce a star shape in the middle, which can make for fun art!

We headed outside and played a running-around game of Spiders and Flies, in which flies tried to avoid the spider's web. We came inside for morning circle and started off with a greeting called, "Apple Did You Know?" Children picked an apple card from the basket and greeted their neighbor, saying "Good morning, did you know that..."  and read their card.  The cards had apple facts such as "Did you know that apples are a member of the rose family? They are related to strawberries, apricots, peaches, and roses!" 


Then we sang a song called "This is my trunk I'm an apple tree" with hand motions to demonstrate an apple tree throughout the seasons.  Next we read the morning message. Today's theme is "Apples a-peel to me" and the password is "pomology."  As always, I broke the word up into smaller pieces so we could understand it. Pom is Latin for "fruit" and ology means "the study of".  Kids noticed the similarity of pom to "palm" and "pollination".  Words can be so tricky! 





Then it was time for our morning activity: a survey of our favorite apple variety. There were three to choose from: Cortland, Granny Smith, and Honey Crisp. First the homeschoolers sampled them, and recorded their favorites on a survey chart.


Then they went around the building in teams to survey the Hitchcock Center staff.  Staff members were very excited to have a break to taste apples, and thought very hard about which ones they liked best!

 

When they recorded all their data, we returned to the classroom and began to graph our results. We had to pause though, because it was time to leave for our field trip!  We hopped in the van and headed off to Small Ones Farm in Amherst.


What a beautiful place!  A friendly black cat came up to greet us as we climbed out of the van, and campers noticed all the chickens roaming around the orchard. We greeted Sally and J.C., two of the farmers, and then walked over to a circle of apple boxes and had a seat. They told us that today they were planting garlic in the fields. Farmer Bob came from the garlic fields and showed us a sticky red insect trap that is shaped like an apple and told us about how a big job of apple farmers is to fend off insects.


Bob told us that it is important not to eat apples that have fallen on the ground because they get dirty, but that it was OK to feed them to their 750-lb. pig named Cutie Pie. So homeschoolers grabbed some buckets and headed out to the apple trees to collect "drops" to feed to the pig.

 
 

They hauled five 5-gallon buckets full of drops from a Mutsu apple tree back to the pig's pen. She wasn't out, so we tossed some apples over the fence. Farmer Bob said that the sound of the apples dropping on the ground would lure her out. Sure enough, she came wandering out - she is HUGE! It seemed like too many apples for one pig, but we tossed them all over and she didn't stop eating the whole time we watched her. Wow!
Then we regrouped and began our apple scavenger hunt. Homeschoolers wandered around the orchard searching for items like "a bird on an apple tree" and "a perfect apple on the ground."  It was a nice opportunity to appreciate the beautiful farm. 



 

Afterwards we gathered to have lunch. While we munched, Farmer Sally showed us some different varieties of apples grown at the farm. She said they grow about forty varieties now and that number is going up. She passed around a Red Delicious, Liberty, Golden Delicious, and Asian pear, pointing out the differences. Then she described the different ways insects can affect the fruits, and passed around a few examples. And then - yum! - she showed us some of their products sold at their farm stand - pie, cider, and cider vinegar!


Before long it was time to go back to the Hitchcock Center. We got right to work on finishing our apple tasting survey, and it had surprising results! Cortlands and Honey Crisps were almost a tie, with Granny Smiths only getting one vote!

Then we worked on our journals, gluing in our scavenger hunts and some photos Anne had printed. Then we shared our "Meet a tree" home projects from last time - kids did an excellent job showing the leaves, bark and pictures of the tree. Before we said goodbye, kids went over to today's nature table, which instead of being related to apples, was set up with fossils and crystals I had found on a trip to Pennsylvania last month. The fossils are 300 million year old ferns in shale, found at a site world famous for white fern fossils. The crystals were found on a steep cliff in an abandoned strip mine. Cool! I was thrilled kids wanted to take some home. And then, poof! Class was over.  It always flies by.