1-2-3 Come Make Some Apple Art With Me!
I've had several requests for some quick and easy art activties, that teachers can do in a short amount of time, or set up as centers. Here are some of my all-time favorites.
A melted crayon apple looks awesome and takes only a few minutes to make. Students cut out their apple and glue a leaf and stem to it. Teacher reads the poem and reviews rhyming. "Apples can be yellow, red or green. These are the prettiest apples you've ever seen!"
As a terrific fine motor skill, children peel a red, yellow and green broken crayon.
When it is their turn, children bring their apple and crayons to the adult-run center, where they "shave" their crayons in a crayon sharpener, to make piles of shavings. Students pinch some and sprinkle in a few places on their apple, being careful not to cover the poem.
The teacher or room helper, lays a piece of wax paper on top, and carefully presses down with an iron on its lowest setting. After a few seconds (s)he gently peels back the paper to reveal a multi-colored apple tree. My Y5's often squealed with delight at how cool their apple looked. Click on the link to view/download the Crayon Melt Apple activity.
Another easy apple "craftivity" that helps strengthen finger muscles, is a rip and tear apple. Even a young child can work independently at this center, as they tear red, yellow, green, and brown strips of paper into color piles, and then glue them to their apple cut out.
Any of these projects make an outstanding apple bulletin board, or if you do several, arrange them all on a wall, with the caption: Apple-icious Work! Click on the link to view/download the Rip & Tear Apple pattern.
As you can see in the photographs, I have my kiddo's use yellow, green and red, to reinforce the fact that apples can be all of those colors. Another way to bring this idea home, is to have children color the apple squares template. I designed the "graph" paper with large squares for little ones, as well as smaller squares for older children.
Use this "craftivity" to reinforce an ABC pattern as well. Click on the link to view/download The Color-Me Apple activity.
Every now and then, I liked to throw in a few crafts that I knew parents would absolutely love.
I call these "Keepsake Crafts." Tracing a child's arm, on brown construction paper, with their fingers spread to make "branches" results in the perfect apple tree trunk.
Children dip their index finger in red paint, or red glitter glue and dab on 10 fingerprint apples. Include a child's oval photo in the "hollow" of the tree, for that finishing touch.
This apple craft has a poem, so you can review that genre, along with rhyming words. "Cute little apples hanging from my tree. I made them with my fingerprints; they're a special part of me. The 10th one will be the last; listen now and I'll count them fast: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10."
Having children count the 10 apples, reinforces that math standard as well. Click on the link to view/down load The Keepsake Apple Tree Pattern.
Finally, allowing children to paint, is a bit messy, but also provides wonderful fine motor skill practice, and my Y5's absolutely loved it. Have children add seeds to the back of their apple, by pressing their index finger onto a brown stamp pad and then making a star design in the center.
To make this a noisemaker-shaker, add rice or birdseed before you staple their creation. These also look sweet dangling from the ceiling. Click on the link to view/download the Painted Apple Bowl activity.
Thanks for visiting today. Feel free to PIN away. For more apple "craftivities" scroll down for the next blog article, featuring 6 more FREEBIES. It's time for me to clean up my crafty messes and seek some sunshine before the summer's gone. I'm wishing you an apple-icious afternoon.
"The art of teaching, is the art of assisting discovery." -Mark Van Doren
