Apples Apples Apples

Are your celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday with apple activities?  We are going to taste apples and decide which apple we like the best.  I try to pick a good green apple (Granny Smith), and very red apple (red delicious), and the most truly yellow apple I can find (usually Golden Delicious).  I cut them into bitesize pieces using an apple slicer.  I tell my Kinder Kids that they should only take one bite, because they may need to take another bite when it is time to make up their minds.  To make the cutting go quicker I used to use this:

But now I use this!!   I got mine at IFA...but I saw they have them on Amazon too.
 









 I love it!  The kiddos like watching it spin, and I like how quick it is.  I can peel the apples or leave the peels on (and thus have color).  After tasting the apples, we pick the one we like the best.  We graph the results using die cut apples.

This year I want to change things up a bit.  We are going to paint the apples and put them on trees like Deanna Jump suggests.  Same graphing activity, same discussions of more and less, a little more fun because we get to paint. Also it will look great in our hallway with the poem Deanna had included in her unit (Apples! MathandLiteracyActivities).  I can't wait for Wednesday.

Terri