Johnny Appleseed Craft

This week students learn about Johnny Appleseed.  Of course you can eat apples this week for snack in his honor, or plant an apple tree, OR you could do this fun craft and use it to store an essay.  Cut a piece of notebook paper, writing paper, or just plain paper to 1 inch less than the width of your toilet paper tube (you can use multiple sheets and tape them together so that you have a long skinny essay sheet).  Have your older students write an essay describing what Johnny Appleseed was known for on it.  Include who he was, where he was from, why he was famous and what lasting impact he had on the world.  For your younger students, have them write a few sentences about what they learned about Johnny Appleseed.  For the youngest students, just have fun doing the craft!

You will need:

Green construction paper

White/cream construction paper

Black construction paper

Toilet Paper tube (or a papertowel tube)

Gluestick

Big Popsicle/Craft Stick

Red tissue paper (or you could color a coffee filter with red markers)

Instructions

First cut out a rectangle from your white construction paper to cover your toilet paper tube.

Glue or tape the white rectangle around your toilet paper tube.  Then cut out tear drop seeds from your black construction paper and glue these onto your toilet paper tube/apple core.

Cut out two circles from your red tissue paper.  Mine were about 4inches in diameter.

Take your glue stick and run it around the inside edge of the toilet paper tube.  Then stuff the tissue circle into the end of the toilet paper tube so that part of it sticks out and around the top.  Repeat this for the bottom.

Cut out some small leaves from your green construction paper and glue these to the top of your popsicle stick. For your youngest students, those who are just doing a fun craft- stick the popsicle stick into the middle and through the tissue paper circles in your toilet paper tube.  Use some glue stick if necessary to adhere the tissue paper to the popsicle stick.

Now if you want to use this apple core craft to store an essay, cut a small slit/rectangle (adults should do this since cutting cardboard can be tricky and I don’t want any little ones getting hurt!) into the side of your toilet paper tube leaving 1/2 inch at the top and bottom.

Tape the bottom of their essay to the popsicle stick. Roll up your essay around the popsicle stick, stick it through the middle of your apple and thread it out the slit you made in the side.  Now you’ve got a Johnny Appleseed essay stored in an apple core!

When you want to read it, pull on the essay.  When you want to store it, twist your popsicle stick to reel it back into the core.  I’ll warn you that these may not stand up to lots of repetitive pulling and rewinding- the leaves might fall off.  But in any case, my little student really enjoyed it!