Social studies for preschool children is all about exploring ME and MY World. Looking into our refrigerator, you will see apples, apple sauce, and apple juice. Red apples, yellow apples, green apples. It doesn’t matter, because my kids LOVE apples!!! They are part of our every day experiences. So how did the apples get to our fridge?
Let’s explore with these hands-on, fun Preschool Apple Theme Activities.
Apple Orchard Theme Activities for Virtual Field Trip
- WATCH
- LEARN
- READ
- DISCUSS
- PLAY
This week, our playful preschool theme is all about APPLES! In addition to making an apple tree sight word and counting apples, we are taking a closer look at the trip our apples took from the orchard to our table. Affiliate links. The first thing we did was…
WATCH: Take a Virtual Tour of an Apple Orchard and Packing Facility
Have you ever thought about how apples get from the farm to the table? This activity combines social studies and technology for preschoolers. It allows them to visualize what happens at a packing facility.
Apples travel from the orchard to a packing facility, to a storage unit, to the store, and finally – your home!
CLICK HERE for 50+ VIRTUAL Field Trips for Kids
What happens at an apple orchard?
- First, the apple trees are grown.
- In the spring blossoms form on the trees.
- Then, these blossoms turn into small apples.
- As time progresses, these apples grow and ripen.
- Then, starting in July, apples are harvested.
- Finally, the harvest continues as different apple varieties are ripe.
See how one family farm harvests the different varieties.
(This video is nice, but long for my preschooler. We watched just a portion to see how the trees and harvest looked like)
What happens at an apple packing facility?
- First, the apples are weighed
- They are put on a convener.
- They are rinsed with heated chlorinated water.
- They are put on a rolling convener.
- The apples are sprayed with water and food safe soap.
- They are dried with a fan.
- Wax is applied.
- Apples run through a drier.
- Apples are hand sorted.
- They run through a color and size sorter.
- Stickers are applied to tell consumers what type of apple they are.
- Apples are placed in trays or bags.
- The trays and bags are put in boxes.
- The boxes are then moved to a storage facility.
Here is a video that shows this process. WARNING – my kids wanted to watch this over and over and over again. You may want to set a limit of how many times they can watch it BEFORE you hit play!
Some apples are used to make other products such as apple sauce, apple juice, or even apple cider.
Learn How Apple Cider Is Made
Tour a Carlson Orchards Apple Cider Packing Facility
A variety of apples are used to make apple cider such as the Eastern Red Delicious and Macintosh apples. See the process and equipment that is used to press and process the apples.
Vocabulary words:
Press: A machine that squeezes the juice out of apples
Pasteurization: the process of killing bacteria in the food
Gallon: a unit of measurement for liquid volume
How many minutes does it take to bottle 1,000 gallons of apple cider at this facility?
<hint pay close attention at 3:15>
Make a Model of the Path and Apple Takes from Orchard to Table.
Orchard to Packing Facility to Storage to Store to Your Home
How to Make an apple orchard.
Materials Needed For Apple Orchard
- Empty cereal box
- Scissors (for adults to cut)
- Tape
- Hole punch
- Green paint
- Paintbrush
- Red (or green or yellow) pom poms.
Directions for making an apple tree orchard
1. First, adults prepare 4 rectangles for the tree trunks using the thin cardboard from the empty cereal box. Wrap them into a cylinder shape and tape for the trunk. Cut circles with the remaining cereal box. Hole punch several times close together to get a hole big enough for the pom pom to fit. This irregular shape will help hold the pom pom apples in the tree.
2. Nest, set the circles out for the child to paint green.
3. Then, when dry, assemble the trees. Cut 2 small notches into the tops of each cylinder and slide the circle tree together.
4. Finally, build the store, packing facility, storage unit and home. Use bricks, blocks or any other household materials.
Play
Re-enact the path that apples take to get from the orchard to your home. Have your child show you how the apples get from the orchard to their table at home.
Preschool Apple Theme Activities Challenge Discussion Question:
How has modern technology changed the way people get apples?
EVEN MORE Preschool Apple Theme Activities
SCIENCE
Examining Apple Parts, How Does It Grow, Sink/Float at Little Bins For Little Hands
MUSIC & MOVEMENT
Apple Hop at Learning 2 Walk
MATH
Counting Apples with Preschoolers: Real-Life Math at Life Over C’s
Apple Math Fun in Preschool – Tasting and Graphing Apples at Fun-A-Day
Magnetic Apple Math Game
Counting Apples
Stacking Apples
WRITING
Scented Playdough Pre-Writing Activity at Preschool Toolbox
LITERACY
Alphabet Activity: Apple Tree Letter Matching at Mom Inspired Life
Alphabet Learning: Apple Stamping at Growing Book by Book
Apple Sight Word Tree
SENSORY
Applesauce Dough for Sensory Play at Still Playing School
COOKING
How to Make Homemade Apple Pie – Cooking with Preschoolers Powerful Mothering
SCIENCE
Apple Oxidation Experiment at Raising Lifelong Learners
CRAFT
Paper Plate Apple Craft at The Kennedy Adventures
Apple Tree Craft with Marble Painting
Preschool Apple Theme Books
Connect literacy with everything you do!!!! Here are 10 Apple Books for this thematic unit.
- Annie the Apple Pie Fairy
- Johnny Appleseed
- How Do Apples Grow?
- The Apple Pie Tree
- Ten Apples Up On Top!
- Apples and Pumpkins
- Apples, Apples, Apples
- The Biggest Apple Ever
- Ten Red Apples
- Amelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie
You may also enjoy these activities…
Brilliant – We've watched the video's today and then went Apple picking in our garden where we are lucky enough to have 3 trees of our own. It was great to talk about how what we were doing would be done on a large scale.
Such a great collection of resources and activities! Thanks for sharing! I love the pretend play apple orchard! My little one has a language delay and pretend play is a big part of what we do to increase her language use. This looks like it would be so much fun!
I LOVE this.i have enough toilet paper rolls to do it too!
Great ideas for teaching where apples come from. My kids have been very interested in farm-to-table discussions and videos since we joined a CSA program through a local farm a few years ago. Now they go and visit the cows, pigs, and chickens that end up on our table. 🙂
Thanks for the warning about the video – my son enjoyed watching it more than once too! I love the combination of pretend play, fine motor skills, and social studies in such a fun way!
Us too! I just double checked that they were open. Hoping to pick some Gala and Zestar varieties!
Mine just asked if he could watch them AGAIN ( I think we are on the millionth time) luckily it is good preparation for our apple orchard visit coming soon!
What a great listener! These statistics would be a great springboard into problem solving!
No longer are apples sorted by humans they are sorted by machines now. With the help of the machines we can pick 5x as many apples as before and they are able to get them to the customer quicker. Answered by my 10 year old.
I loved watching the videos. I bet you guys had loads of fun setting the scene.
I can't wait to show this to my son. He will love it as he is such a visual learner and loves process! We are headed to the orchard next weekend!
This is so fun! My little guy is going to LOVE the videos. Thanks for this awesome resource!
Enjoy!
I'm thrilled that I'm going to be on vacation for a few weeks in September. I'm looking forward to checking out an apple orchard with the kids (then making some homemade applesauce)
I'm off to find our Fisher Price farmer so we can make an apple orchard, too! My kids will love the YouTube videos! How handy!
Apples are so much fun to learn with!!! They are everywhere in our house right now!
I was just looking this weekend at a few of my facebook friends who went apple pickign with their kids and was a bit jealous, this will be such fun to create with the kids this week. Love all of the activities aht were shared this week but a little confession, I'm a bit apple obssessed. So excited about this new series, thanks for putting it all together Amanda
FUN! We are hoping to go to a real orchard next week!
I love this idea! Can't wait to watch the video clips with my preschooler. We just made an apple orchard today with a mat and tractors. The kids were having fun taking a tractor full of people out to the orchard to pick apples. Now, we'll add the other locations too.
Oooh, I hope you have fun trying it out!
I need to try making videos with the kids – that sounds like a great idea!
awesome! my apple crazy preschooler is going to love this activity! <3
What a great activity for playful learning! Our kids love relevant videos (as well as making them, too)! The apples play is a wonderful addition to fall-themed play!
Thanks Devony. We are screen free until 3, so have just started using this aspect of technology more. I find it's helpful to pre-screen the videos the night before because not everything on You Tube is kid friendly!
This is so creative and well planned! I love how the "apples" can be placed in the trees! How fun!
Thanks for the YouTube links, too! We love to watch clips like these!