Today* for our EarthSchooling Enrichment class we made apple-pickers, told the apple star story and made apple crisp! All the fruit on the lower branches has been snacked away by Sofi and her friends so we had to reach a little farther into the tree 🙂
Making the apple pickers and using them was everyone’s favorite! We took some wooden dowel rods, some recycled soda containers (I have to admit I got these from the dump because we don’t even drink soda), and some forks (I’ll be wondering where those went tomorrow at dinner time) and some tape and put them together. I have two apple trees growing renegade at the side of our house. I don’t spray them or anything. They have some spots on the apples and leaves but once you peel them they are perfect and un-blemished on the inside. After we picked them everyone got to bring them home to make something. We were going to make something in class but the “picking” went on so long…there was no time to do anything with the harvest!
To use these you lift them up into the tree, hook the fork through the apple stem and then twist the entire contraption while you are also pushing up a bit (with a jerking motion) and the apple will fall into the container. This takes some practice (this is what the boys LOVED) and it does not work every time. Sometimes you just have to let one of those apples go…but the kids faces were just glowing with excitement and pride every time they got an apple down. I kept hearing “Look! I did it! I got another one!”
Once the apples were all snuggled into their basket I told them the apple star story. This story is usually told in the Kindergarten or First Grade classroom but even my older kids today enjoyed it again. This is a different version than the story we have in the Kindergarten Curriculum. There are quite a few versions of this story!
Apple Star Story
Shared by Earthschooling Member, Author Unknown
Once long ago, long long ago, the very first apple tree started to grow in the earth. The roots went down into the earth, and the sprout started to grow up into the air. All day long the little sprout stretched in the warm sun. Then night came and it started to get dark, and the little apple sprout looked up into the sky and saw all the little stars twinkling in the sky. The little apple tree thought they were so very pretty, and the little sprout really wanted to touch one. So the little sprout stretched and grew and reached and stretched more, but try as it might, the little sprout could not reach the stars.
And then the little sprout started to cry. Suddenly out of the sky a little fairy flew down, a beautiful little fairy with a crown of stars as beautiful as the stars up in the heavens. The little apple fairy landed on the apple sprout and asked what was wrong, why the sprout was crying. The sprout answered “oh beautiful fairy, I so want to touch the stars up in the sky, they are so beautiful and twinkle so brightly, but no matter how hard I reach and stretch, I can’t grow tall enough to touch them”. The fairy said “I am sorry little apple tree, I will go up and get a star, and bring it down to you, so that you may touch a star!” And with that the fairy flew away.
Well time passed, with long days in the sun and cool nights with the stars. One day the apple tree woke up and was covered with beautiful pink flowers! The apple tree was so happy and proud of the flowers! Then it became summer and the flowers slowly turned into tiny apples. Then it was fall and the apples were all beautiful and golden red! The tree was so very proud of all her apple babies, and the tree was very very happy. Suddenly the fairy came back to the tree and said “tree! I have brought you a basket of stars to keep!” The tree said to the fairy “Oh thank you fairy! But I am so proud of my beautiful apple babies that I no longer need a star!” so the fairy said “I have an idea! I will give each of your apple babies a star then! I will hide it deep inside each apple, so that the earthly children can see them, and then each time an earth child eats an apple they can see a star as beautiful as the stars in heaven and remember their time there!” The apple tree thought that would be a great idea, so the fairy flew to each apple and touched it lightly with her wand and hid a beautiful star in each apple! And in the star’s are apple pips, and in each pip is a dream, that one day that apple pip will grow into an apple tree someday too!
After the story we made apple crisp!
Step One: Peel the Apples
Step Two: Make Apple Yo-Yos and Apple Jump Ropes
Step Three: Mix the Topping, Add to the Dish and Bake at 350 for 40 minutes!
Eat and enjoy! Thank you for visiting our Blog!
*Note: This is a reprint from our old deleted Blog. Many subscribers said they missed some of the wonderful articles in our old Blog so we are slowly bringing it back by posting some of our favorite “classic” posts every few weeks and integrating them with the new posts. It is a work in progress but soon you will be able to see all our classic blog posts as well as the new ones in this one location. At this time we are about 30% done with this transition.
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