Apple Picking at the "Orchard"

I'm just going to put this out there. If I could take my kids to the moon, I would. My goal for my elementary babies is to have as many life experiences as possible so that by the time they reach transition age, they are not seeing or doing things for the very first time as an older teenager. I personally feel it is SO important for them to be part of their community now so that they can get all the practice they can for later on. Last year, we went to a restaurant (and not a fast food restaurant, either!) and had lunch together as a class-I hope to do even more this year!

Unfortunately, I have yet to develop a program that lets me drive a bus around town all day every day to do community outings!! Haha! In the meantime, I try to bring as many experiences to my kids as I can and make them as real as possible. All of my students need things to have a purpose and function to create meaning for them.

Today we went to the "apple orchard." This was one of our culminating activities after a 2 week unit on apples, which included using pictures and words to describe apples, comparing/contrasting different apples, making predictions about color, taste, and number of seeds in apples that we pulled out of a bag, reading and making apple books, labeling the parts of an apple on paper and on actual apples, and creating our own step by step guide to going to an apple orchard (which the kids used for this activity).

Here is our step by step guide that we made as a class:

After dragging a very large tree branch halfway through the woods and all through the hallways of school (while receiving some very strange looks), I set it up in our movement room to resemble a tree. I attached the apples to the tree using pipe cleaners, which made them sturdy while they were hanging but easy to pull off. Finally, I added some finishing touches to match the vocab we had been learning, like a basket and a hay bale. This was what our apple orchard ended up looking like!

One at a time, my kids got to ride in the "hay wagon" to the apple orchard and choose whichever apple they wanted. We even worked some PT and OT goals into it by climbing in and out of the wagon, climbing up on the stepstool, and twisting the apples off! It was a big hit, especially the last step, which was eating the apples!

Even our PT joined in for a wagon ride!

 


She had to climb up to find her perfect apple!

Showing off his basket with apples in it!

Getting a different viewpoint to choose his apple

                                                 
We addressed so many skills with this lesson in a fun and functional way! The best part of it was, it was totally FREE! We got our apples donated from some of our staff and our lunch department, harvested the "tree" from outside, and used materials we already had around the room.  Beats paying to visit an apple orchard!

Meet Ms. Fleury

Hi everyone!
I am a special education teacher in an elementary self-contained classroom. I have students in grades K-5, and each student has their own paraprofessional with them at all times. We also are lucky to have a GREAT team with a PT, OT, and SLP, as well as several other service providers! My students each bring their own talents and challenges, and together they make up a diverse, unique, and FUN class!

I am constantly thinking about how to best meet the changing and widespread needs of my students, and I often turn to others' blogs for inspiration. I am in my fourth year teaching in this classroom, and I still feel like I learn something new every day. I decided to blog not only to chronicle my own growth as an educator, but also to provide resources to others who may be looking for something new to try with their students, or who just need a little bit of inspiration when they are in a rough patch.

In this blog, I plan to share with all of my readers both my own teaching strategies, tips, and stories, as well as resources I have "borrowed" from others that have worked great with my kids-I will always give credit where credit is due :) I also will share some store-bought finds and DIY materials I have put together over the years. Some materials are very specific to my students, so feel free to borrow and adapt to fit your own students' needs.

Thanks for stopping by! Please leave comments if you enjoy what you see :)