Apple Study Unit with Johnny Appleseed, Pie, Counting, Weighing, Sweet vs Sour, Browning, Volcano & Stamping

Yes, it’s a lot. Yes, it is a LOT of fun!

If you’re looking for a great Apple Study Unit, here it is! Our group session included several teens all the way down to toddlers and everyone had a blast.

We dove right in and made a day of it. We started with a read along and ended with apple pie a la mode.

We did A LOT, but you can cut out any portion.

WHAT WE DID FOR OUR THE APPLE STUDY UNIT

The story of Johnny Appleseed
Portions of this Apple Study Unit , including: Identifying which Apples we had, the Apple life cycle and her apple pie recipe. OH YUM! (There’s also a fingerprint apple tree, felt apple pattern, counting and so much more that we didn’t get to.)
Apple Investigation printable from here (free, just download after email). With this we weighed, measured, counted seeds, drew our apples, determined if they were sweet or sour, selected their color and so much more.
Do apples turn brown in various things like oil, milk, water, vinegar?
Apple Art
Apple volcano – instructions here.

Ready to dive in?

Here’s what you’ll need for each portion:

Read Along:

Johnny Appleseed Book

Apple Study Unit / Pie:

This unit study.
Apples – Several Varieties
A sharp knife
Measuring cups, spoons, mixing bowl
Figi / Gala Apples for Pie, sugar, brown sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, pie crusts, oil

Apple Investigation:

Measuring tape (for fabric, etc) or a string and ruler
Kitchen Scale
Markers, crayons, pens
A bucket of with water

Apple Browning:

Various liquids – water, vegetable oil, milk, vinegar
Clear Cups (we used the little half cups)

Apple Art:

White paper or construction paper
Paint that you can dip in (we used acrylic paint)

Apple Volcano:

Apples
Baking pan (we got disposable pans, but you can use whatever you have on hand)
Baking Soda
Vinegar (buy the gallon, you’ll need it)
Food coloring

STEP BY STEP APPLE STUDY UNIT

Read Johnny Appleseed

Apple Pie

First things first, we made our pie. We chose to make the pie first so we could have a fresh, warm apple pie when we were done with our study unit. It takes about 40 minutes to bake, so by time we were done, the smell of pie was amazing!

We made the pie recipe below. We used Gala apples, but some mix Figi in or us a recipe that is different all together.

Skin your apples and slice them into similar sizes. I have to admit that we did neither of these successfully, and the pie was amazing.

You’ll need to add to your mixing bowl:

5-6 medium size apples
1⁄4 c. sugar
1⁄4 c. brown sugar
1 tbs flour
2 tbs lemon juice
4 tbs melted butter 2 tsp cinnamon

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until they are completely blended.

If you’re a pie crust genius, you can make your own. If you’re like me and pie crust is your nemesis, you can buy two frozen pie crusts. We let them defrost completely and then we put the apple mix in one and used the crust from the second pie crust as the top.

We trimmed the edges and attempted to seal and flute them – but toddlers. We also tried to slit the pie, but mostly had one huge hole. You get what you get and don’t throw a fit.

Bake at 400° for 40 minutes or so.

Apple Investigation

Honestly if you don’t want to purchase the unit study on Etsy, this free printable was amazing too. We went with both for the beautiful identification chart, life cycle, etc.

The apple investigation worksheet is pretty self explanatory, but we jumped into this with the materials I listed above.

Apple Browning:

We cut pieces off of our apples. By now we had a lot left over from counting seeds, tasting etc.

We put equal size pieces in cups with vinegar, water, milk and oil and let them sit while we worked on the rest of the projects.

Apple Art:

Cut your apple in half, gently dip in paint and stamp it on a piece of paper.

Apple Volcano:

Out of all of the things we did, this one was probably the favorite and we spent a LOT of time doing this over and over.

We bought square baking trays with two inch sides since we had a lot of kiddos participating. You can use what you have on hand. We were going to recycle the plastic cups, but honestly, it would have overflowed.

THIS IS MESSY. We ruined two kiddos outfits with this. So, I recommend wearing play clothes.