If you’re looking for a fun preschool unit to kick off your school year, you can’t go wrong with an apple theme! In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite activity ideas for a preschool apple unit. Your students will love these hands-on and engaging apple activities!
The Benefits of Themed Units in Preschool
Arranging the preschool curriculum into a series of units is helpful for young learners in many different ways:
- Exposure to New Vocabulary: Preschool students are growing their vocabulary at lightning speed! You can use this momentum to expose them to even more new vocabulary words related to the weekly theme.
- Relatable Content: Themes are a great way for students to see academic concepts applied to relatable, real-life topics.
- Increased Engagement: Overall, themed units are fun! The hands-on activities are a great way to keep young students engaged in learning.
7 Engaging Ideas for a Preschool Apple Unit
If you do a quick search for preschool apple activities on Pinterest, you can quickly become overwhelmed! There are so many options of fun apple-themed activities that you can use in a preschool classroom. It can be daunting (not to mention time-consuming) to sort through them all!
That’s why I wanted to share seven of my favorite activities that are fun for preschoolers but also support student learning. These engaging activities will help your students learn more about apples while also developing important academic skills in all content areas.
1. Nonfiction Text and Vocabulary
At the beginning of a thematic unit, it’s helpful to explore the new vocabulary words that students will hear throughout the different learning activities. We know that it takes many exposures to new words and concepts before they stick!
One of my favorite ways to introduce and practice new vocabulary is through nonfiction text. As you read the text together as a class, you can discuss the new apple vocabulary that you discover. This also gives you the opportunity to point out different nonfiction text features to your students as you read.
2. Apple Investigation
Your preschoolers will love to become scientists for an apple investigation! Students are able to observe a chemical reaction first-hand as they see what happens when the inside of an apple is exposed to air.
First, you can have students predict what will happen when the apple is cut in half. Then, you can cut open the apple and have students watch what happens. As we all know from experience, it doesn’t take long for the chemical change to begin! After watching the apple turn brown, students can then record their observations by coloring the apple on their recording sheets.
3. Apple Poetry
Poetry is an excellent way to help students practice the new apple vocabulary they’ve been learning. It can be easier for students to learn and retain vocabulary words when they’re paired with the rhythm of a poem. This apple core poem can be a great shared reading activity during an apple unit. Repeated reading will help students get many different exposures to new vocabulary and concepts.
After reading the poem together, students can use picture cards to practice sequencing. Each picture card corresponds to a different line of the poem. As they put the pictures in order, they also get to see another example of the apple life cycle in action.
4. Apple Craft
The perfect addition to the apple poem is an apple core craft! Students can tear small pieces of red paper to add to the apple core. This is a great way for preschoolers to improve their hand strength and coordination! These crafts look adorable on a fall bulletin board or classroom display. Plus, they’re a great visual reminder of the poem you read together as a class.
5. Counting Apples
Incorporating the unit theme into your learning stations is an easy way to add engagement to math practice! In this activity, students will choose a card that shows how many of each color apple belongs on the tree.
Students will use this card as a key to help them load the tree with apples. They will count the correct number of each color as they add the apples to the mat. This activity includes number recognition and counting practice for numbers to ten as students use one-to-one correspondence to add the apples to the tree.
6. Apple Shape Practice
This apple-themed shape practice is another fun math station that you can use during an apple theme week for preschool. Students will use play dough to create apples of different shapes. They can then use a dry erase marker to trace the shape on the laminated task cards.
The addition of themed shape practice is an easy way to bring some engaging repetition to mastering 2D shapes.
7. Applesauce Taste Test
Last but not least, you can’t have an apple theme week without some sort of apple snack! However, you can turn the snack into another learning opportunity for your students by making applesauce in class for an exploration of the five senses.
As students taste the applesauce you’ve made together, you can record their responses for how it looks, smells, feels, sounds, and tastes. This can really help preschoolers deepen their understanding of the five senses.
Printable Apple Activities for Preschool
You can find all of the activities featured in this post (along with many more!) in one easy-to-download resource. This Preschool Apple Unit includes everything you need to prepare apple activities for every content area. Students will be able to practice important academic skills with an engaging apple twist!
If you’d like to take a closer look at all of the standards-based activities included in this apple unit, you can find it in my TPT store.
Save This Apple Unit for Preschool
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite preschool board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these fun activities when you’re looking for a fall preschool theme.
