Lesson 3

Seasons of an Apple Tree

Objectives:

• Students will describe how seasonal changes affect plant growth.

Time Required:

• Three-one hour sessions

Vocabulary:

• buds

• blossoms

• boughs

• seasons

Materials:

• The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbon.  This is a fun book that teaches about the changing seasons, Arnold enjoys the pleasures of his apple tree: its buds and blossoms in the spring, its sheltering boughs in summer, the tasty apples in the fall, and, in winter, the bare branches hold strings of popcorn and berries for the birds.

• Internet

• KidPix

• Four pictures of apple trees in different seasons and four sentence strips with sentence describing each picture.  The Seasons of a Tree sheet will assist you when writing the sentence strips. 

Procedures:

• Share the story The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons and discuss how an apple tree changes with each season.

• Show students pictures of apple trees on the internet and how they blossom in the spring:  http://orchard.uvm.edu/uvmapple/hort/97budstage/default.html and http://orchard.uvm.edu/uvmapple/hort/98budstage/default.html

• Place four different pictures in random order and four sentences about each picture in random order and students will match the picture to the correct sentence about the picture.

• Students will create a booklet to demonstrate what they have learned about the seasonal changes in an apple tree.   They will title the book The Seasons of _____'s Apple Tree inserting their own name on the line.  Students will draw a picture of what an apple tree looks like in each season.  See Sample.  They will write the name of the season on the top, the illustration in the center, and type a sentence describing the tree in the bottom. Students should print their pages and make a book.

Evaluation:

• Students will be evaluated on accuracy and neatness on The Season's of the Tree sheet.

Extension Activities:

• Take students to Alyson's Apple Orchard.   Read through each season and explain what is done to the apple trees during each season.  Have students choose some task that must be done on the orchard and design a new tool to help it go more smoothly.  Or students could design a new peeler, corer, or other gadget that a consumer could use once the fruit has been purchased.
• Students can play Apple Corps - Mr. Potato Head but instead of decorating a potato they will be decorating an apple.  Students can move pieces around onscreen to create new faces for "Mr. Apple Head."

Home Learning:

• Students will write an acrostic poem about apples using any word processor program or on an apple writing paper.

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