Saturday, September 27, 2014

If I Were An Apple...


I would hang on a tree and hang there until I am ripe. When fall comes I will be ripe. It is now fall and I have changed from green to red. I can't wait for harvest time! It is harvest time now, and I can't wait to be picked! The farmer is coming down to the orchard with his basket. He is picking the apple. I have been picked! I have been washed and ready to eat so I can be yummy in your tummy. It's fun being an apple! (Abbi - 6th grade)
 I would climb a tree. I would hang on the tree and fall down. Someone will find me and pick me up and eat me. (Alyssa - 1st grade)

My name would be Orange. I will be in apple pie. A goat came from the hill and ate me up. Now I am in the belly of a goat. (Ayme - 1st grade)
 I would be a Honey crisp. I would have ten Granny Smiths over for a picnic. (Cally - 1st grade)
 I would be a green colored one. I would like for someone to pick me up and place me in a basket on their table. I would also like for all my other colored friend apples to be in the basket with me to brighten up someone's home. (Destiny - 4th grade)
 I would like to be pink and I would like to be warm too. I would like to slide and I would like love too. I would like to go to school. I would like to bake too and then be ate. (Ella - 1st grade)

I would want to lay in the grass with flowers. I would look at the trees and watch their leaves turn colors - red, orange, yellow and brown. They would fall and cover me like a blanket. (Lucy - PreK)

 I am an apple and I fell off an apple tree. If I were an apple and I got picked up I would have been eaten. (Hope - 1st grade)
 I will be smashed and I will be put in the oven to be baked and be eaten. I will miss my friends on the tree when they are having fun without me. Then I will be a new apple and I will be put back on the tree with my friend and we will have fun. (Julia - 3rd grade)
 If I were an apple I would want my home to be in an orchard in Gettysburg PA. I would want to be a Macintosh apple because it is a good baking apple and good just to eat. I would be round, rosy red and shiny. My tree would be short so everyone could see me. I would hope I would one day end up at the Apple Harvest Festival. I might see my friends there. My dream would be to be picked and used in one of the very many yummy treats you could find there. They are apple dumplings, fresh apple cider, applesauce, apple fritters, apple butter, apple pie or candy apples. Harvest time is just around the corner and my family and I are going. We will have to bring something delicious home for my wonderful teacher. (Juliana - 4th grade)
 I would be happy in the tree. I had lots of friends in the tree. I had everything I need to be an apple. But I get a little scared sometimes when I look down because it is high. One day I fell but luckily I did not get squashed. I saw an animal. I rolled away cause I did not want to be eaten. I rolled a little and then I saw more apples. I said Hi. I thought I'd try to find my friends. I kept looking until I found them. I saw another apple squashed. I thought, God has been good to me. (Leah - 4th grade)
 My name would be Mack and I will be a Fugi apple. I lived on a big tree but one day I fell off the tree on a house. I slid off and landed on a boy's bike where I slept that night because I could not move. The next day I woke up surprised I grew legs! So I hopped off the bike and walked to a hotel where I slept for the night. The next day I grew arms so I went outside to get a job and that's what I did. I am now a lawyer. I got married, got a house, and had kids. And I am the first apple to be the President of the United States of America. I am retired and I am now a grandfather. (Marc - 5th grade)  

(I didn't hand the camera to Alison until after Marc did his report so I didn't get his picture. However, I thought this apple would fit with his story!)

 I will grow up to be a flower then I will be a green ball then I will be a red apple. Then I hang from a tree. I will get picked, then I will be put in apple pie. I will be eaten by a horse. My name will be flower. (Michelle - 3rd grade)
 My name would be Apitizer. I would be a bright yummy Gala apple. First I started as a blossom then grew into a yummy Gala apple. When I fell out of the tree I hit the ground hard. I got hurt. A girl picked me up, and her name was Emaline. She brought me inside and washed me up. Emaline put me in her bookbag, but it was hard to stay in one place. When we got to school Emaline gave me to her teacher Mrs. Lytle. Mrs. Lytle really liked me. She left me on her desk for five days. I got board. On Saturday Mrs. Lytle planned apple day. I was in apple pie, applesauce, and in apple dumplings. Then on Monday the students gobbled me up. I was stuck in the belly of a giant. It was very smelly but then I got dijusted and I was gone forever. (Samantha - 5th grade)
 I would stay cold. I would not like to be rotten. I would not like to be eaten. I would want to be a red apple. (Sarah - 1st grade)
My life would start as a seed. That seed would fall in the ground and start growing. Soon that seed would turn into a tree. Now it's time for the tree to bear fruit. So here am I and now I'm going to be picked. I'm going to a store to be bought, and I was bought by a woman. She brought me to her house. Now I'm going to be her dessert. She is going to make me into a apple pie. Now she has the pie ready to bake. So she put it in the oven and soon the pie was done and so is the story. (Stephen - 6th grade)

Apple Day!


Apple day was so much fun! We all dressed up in apple colors, and the students had their mouths watering as they prepared to taste test 17 different kinds of apples - yep, that's right. 17 different kinds!!!

 
Before we tasted them, we wrote down some words that described what each apple looked like on the outside, and what made each of them different.

Then came the fun of taste testing all of the apples, and describing what each tasted like. It was amazing to taste all the differences of each apple! I think most of us were on serious apple overload by the time we were done!


Mrs. Lytle showed the students how to make apple crisp. At the end of the day, we all got to sample that warm, crunchy, apple goodness. :-)

 

We then did a fun project making cinnamon applesauce ornaments. You mix together cinnamon, applesauce and glue into a dough. Then you flatten it and press a cookie cutter into the dough. In a few more days, the ornaments will be hardened, and we will be able to decorate them.
 


Our final activities of Apple day included singing Apple songs, hearing stories about "If I were an apple" (stay tuned for that in the next post), and playing an Apple matching game.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Quiet Valley Farm


Today the Elementary students took a step back in time, and got to explore a farm complete with an 1800's family giving us the grand tour.

Some of things they enjoyed learning:

* How farmers planted & plowed the fields
* How corn got shelled and ground
* How butter got churned
* How animals were cared for
* How food was cooked over a fire
* How cups, utensils, bowls and candles were made
* How sheep wool was spin into yarn and weaved on a loom
* What attending a 1800's one-room schoolhouse would be like

Some of the things they enjoyed seeing:

* Honking geese, horses, ducks, chickens, rabbits, HUGE pigs, and mules
* 1800's barn
* 1800's house's kitchen and bedroom
* Different eggs found on the farm
* An old well

Some of the things they enjoyed doing:

* Jumping in a haystack
* Playing with homemade toys
* Petting Janie, the mule
* Having a lesson in multiplication, fractions, geography and spelling in a one-room schoolhouse
* Using an outhouse (well, perhaps they didn't enjoy THAT too much ;-))



Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Fun in the Sun


The elementary students are enjoying the warm, summer days while they last! The girls were having fun picking dandelions on the playground this morning...



 
Enjoying the sun with Destiny & Cally!

They're Getting It!!!


Today during morning announcements, both Mrs. Lytle and I took a picture of these girls. Just look at them! After a few days of being reminded how to sit during this time of the day - they got it!! (Of course receiving merits was a great incentive :-))