Lesson 5

Johnny Appleseed

Objectives:

• Students will identify who Johnny Appleseed was.

• Students will describe the life of Johnny Appleseed.

• Students will put events in chronological order.

Time Required:

• Two days

Vocabulary:

• pioneers

• settlers

• wilderness

• timeline

Materials:

• Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg.  In this story Kellogg presents the life of Johnny Appleseed and describes his love of nature, his kindness to animals and people in an entertaining way for young children.

• Internet

• Word Processing Program

• Sentences for A Johnny Appleseed Timeline (teacher reference)

• Johnny Appleseed Song

Procedures:

• Introduce the book Johnny Appleseed by explaining that it is the story about a man who tried to make this world better by planting apple trees.  Then read the story to the class.  As you read the story spend time with the illustrations noticing and describing the many details shown.  Discuss whether the incidents could have happened in real life or if they were exaggerations (make-believe).

• Sing the Johnny Appleseed Song.

• Discuss the story events and order.

• Create a timeline with index cards.  Suspend a clothesline or heavy string/yarn across a wall or chalkboard.   Write a different event on each card that you use (i.e., first, next, then, finally, etc.)  Make copies of different illustrations from the book and write a sentence under each.  Display all the illustrations and sentences on the clothesline and call on different students to attach the correct event to the picture cards.   Continue in the same manner until all the illustrations are in correct chronological order.

• Discuss what a timeline is.

• Explain to students that they will be constructing a timeline of their own featuring Johnny Appleseed's life.   Write the sentences on the board out of order and students must type them in order to create a timeline of Johnny Appleseed's life.  Once they have completed typing and printing they can add illustrations using crayons and markers.

Evaluation:

• Students will be evaluated on putting the events in chronological order using a timeline.

Extension Activities:

• Students can visit Johnny Appleseed at Enchanted Learning and read the story of Johnny Appleseed.  Students can also click on the on-line Johnny Appleseed painting page or any of the other activities.
• Students can also visit Johnny Appleseed Hidden Pictures and color the hidden items on-line by selecting a magic crayon.
• Have students select their favorite part of the Johnny Appleseed story and draw a picture of it.  Have them write a sentence describing their pictures using any word processing program.  These pictures cold be compiled into a class book.

Home Learning:

• Give students a simple apple shape cut out and a worm. Have students cut apple in half horizontally.  On the top half have them write "An apple a day..." and glue the worm to the right or left side of the top of the apple.  Brainstorm some endings for the worm's expression for the bottom half.   For homework they have to come up with their own ending and write it on the bottom half of the apple. For example, An apple a day... makes me want to read.  An apple a day... makes me want to ride bike, etc.

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