Fall is the perfect time to bring the crisp, cheerful magic of apples into your first-grade classroom! Whether you’re diving into fall, practicing counting and graphing, exploring the science of how apples grow, or simply looking for hands-on crafts and fun, apple-themed activities make learning feel like a celebration. In this post, I’m sharing some of my favorite first-grade-friendly apple ideas that are easy to set up, packed with learning, and guaranteed to get your first graders excited about the season.
I start my apple unit by checking schema and building background knowledge about apples with a week of my NO PREP digital Morning Meetings and More slides. These are totally done for you and cover 30 plus minutes of your day. You can find the Apple Themed Partnering Cards HERE.
Each slide focuses on a different apple themed picture book. I also include apple themed morning greetings. You can click above to check out the picture books and little apple stuffy.
Then we follow up those daily slides with my apple interactive science notebook activities. Like labeling the parts of an apple tree, vocabulary flaps, and more!
Throughout the week, we do apple themed math activities. Like my Apple Search Count the Room (FREE for you) or my Apple Themed Math Centers.
Towards the end of the week, we do an apple taste test and the students vote on their favorite kind of apple. They absolutely love this. I love their little faces when they bite into the Granny Smith apples. We then analyze our apple data and complete an apple graphing craft. These look so adorable in the hallway.
To go with our hallway display, I have the students complete an apple themed writing prompt banner. I provide visual supports with my apple file folder word wall with pictures.
I hope you try out some of these apple themed ideas with your students! I have a freebie linked below for you.
