Johnny Appleseed

1. There are so many activities to do for Johnny Appleseed that fit in with our apple theme. I have listed some of the ideas and projects that are in my file. Many of them are copyrighted and I am not able to print them. I have given credit to the ideas that I received from other teachers or web sites.

2. Celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday is one of my favorite activities. His birthday is September 26. I received this idea from Leslie K at teachers.net several years ago. We do this at the end of our apple unit. Each child brings a cooking pot from home! I send a note home (shown below) a few days before to explain the activity. Make sure that you say "cooking pot!" One year I had two children arrive with a flower pot to wear! We put the pots on and go outside to scatter "grass" seeds instead of apple seeds. We usually do some type of cooking activity for our snack on this day, too! See apple recipes on previous page. Here is a picture of my class on "Johnny Appleseed Day." We include this in the end of they year slide show and their scrapbooks.

Dear Parents,

We have been learning many interesting facts about apples and other things related to apples. We have read lots of stories, discussed the seasons of they year, fall colors, graphed apple seeds, and what apple trees would look like during the different seasons. If you haven't hear the story of "The Little Red House," please ask your child to retell the story. It is also listed on our class web site.

We have also been reading and talking about Johnny Appleseed. He was a real person! He lived during the late 1700s and planted apple trees all across America. He is remembered for wearing a "pot" on his head. To celebrate his upcoming birthday, we are asking the children to bring a cooking pot (with a handle) to school on Thursday, September 21. We are going to imitate Johnny Appleseed and we will pretend to plant apple trees with grass seeds. If your child has overalls, this would be a great day to wear them!

Sincerely,

Linda Critchell

Sue Bergman

3. Make a paper bag puppet of Johnny. I have a pattern that is copyrighted, but you can make your own. His body is done in two parts. The top part of his head is put on the bottom of the paper bag with his mouth and the rest of his body on the bottom section of the bag. The children can put their hand in the bag to make him talk! We put an apple in apple in his hand.

4. There are a couple of very good movies available about Johnny Appleseed's life. I even remember seeing the Disney movie when I was in school. These are available for purchase on the web.

5. Make a book about Johnny Appleseed. After reading several books and seeing the movie, we make a class book. Each child finishes a sentence about what they liked best about Johnny Appleseed. The stories are illustrated and bound into a book. You can also use paper that has been cut into the shape of an apple for a cute book!

6. Sequencing a story about his life. The book that we make is made with two sheets of copy paper that has been divided into four sections. (a total of eight small pages for their book.) The book tells the important things about his life and what he did to help people in settling the west.