So many of us look forward to celebrating the fall season in the classroom. Fall is the perfect time for an apple unit and that’s always a favorite with teachers and students. An all about apples unit is truly complete when you spice it up with some engaging apple science! Teaching resources and creative ideas for the apple life cycle is something you MUST have to supplement your unit! I have found a favorite life cycle project that is my go-to teaching resource every fall.
Lunch Bag LOVE:
I’m so excited to share this super cute project with you! I snapped the last of the photos today as my oh-so-proud-of-themselves second graders shared their finished lunch bag books. My kiddos are totally head over heels in LOVE with their little books. I have not seen such joy in a finished project in a long time, and we make plenty! I think they liked it so much because not only was it a project, but they learned a whole lot about the apple life cycle and became better readers along the way.
Getting Started:
The prep work for this craft was a piece of cake! That is always a bonus, right? We stapled together a few lunch bags and I made some copies of the pages for the book. The rest was up to the children!
We started out by reading each page that gets glued into the book as we discussed the life cycle of an apple from seed to fruit-bearing tree.
The Life Cycle of an Apple Lessons:
The class worked to color a few pages each day because I wanted them to take their time and have a nice finished project. While they worked, I read some informational texts like this great one about the changes in each season in Apple Seasons by Gail Gibbons and Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. ( Amazon Affiliate link)
After our work session, the student pages were collected daily so they would not get wrinkled, dribbled on or lost. You know how that goes!
Assembling the Lunch Bag Book:
On book assembly day, we cut out the pieces and laid them all out.
The book was put together as a whole-class craft, step by step.
It helped to have an example to show them.
This went very smoothly and all pages were glued right side-up and in the correct order!
Project success!
The last to be completed was a fill in the blank review section.
This word bank was great for helping them with spelling the words that went in the blanks.
Reading our Life Cycle Books:
Then the kiddos got to practice reading their books.
Repeated readings were done as choral reading, a buddy read and finally, for home practice, an independent read!
My class absolutely loved making and reading their apple life cycle brown bag books!
They are so excited to get going on the pumpkin bag books soon!
If you think you might like to try out these fun books with your class, you can read more by clicking on the pictures below!
Happy teaching!
