Johnny Appleseed was born September 26, 1775, so we always do our apple science during the week of Johnny's birthday.
We learned lots about apples. There are more than 7,000 kinds of apples grown in the world. We llearned that the first apple trees were brought to America by the Pilgrims, however, the Native Americans, the Indians, already knew about apple trees.
We weighed, measured and compared our apples. Each student learned how to use a gram scale to determine how much their apple weighed in grams.
Some students helped teach other students how to use the scale.
It is fun to move the weights to just the right spot.
Most of our apples weighed around 250 grams, but some weighed more and some weighed less.
Good concenration going on here. Can you name these two kinds of appes?
This Golden Delicious apple was one of the biggest apples to be weighed.
On a gram scale you have to first move the hundreds weight, then move the tens weight and finally you slowly move the onesweight along the scale. It is like place value backwards.
The bar of the scale has to balance with the mark on the end of the scale. It is very tricky.
I was very proud of all the students for being so intent on weighing their apples.
Look at the scale on the right and notice how the arm is too low and not balanced. Now look at the scale on the left and see how the arm is right in the center which means there is an exact weight. Can you guess the weight? I'd say about 264 grams.
We tested several kinds of apples and thought about how they felt, smelled, looked, sounded and taste. Some were soft and others were crunchy. One smelled like a rose,and others had lots of lines and speckles. They all tasted good, but some kids didn't like the sour ones. Our favorites were the Red Delicious, the Gala, the Honey Crisp and the Granny Smith.
Nexted we compared out apples to the weight of objects like these little bears.
We couldn't record an exact weight like we could on the gram scale. These are just simple balancs. Here we were observing and comparing only.
It was fun to add or take out some bears to reach the point of balance.
We learned again that different apples have different mass.
Carefully doing the balance scale.
Now the student is using some actual weghts to figure out the mass of his apple.
The biggest weights were 50 grams. There were also 30, 20, 10 and 5 gram weights.
This time the boys just piled in the weights and we didn't make a total count.
Our final project was to cut up the apples and make applesauce. It takes several hours of cooking to turn these solid apples into a soft and almost liquid matter.
Here is the final product. All that was added was some sugar, cinnamon and a water. The apples cooked all day and it made our room smell like apple pie.
Our final experiment came when we had to eat the applesauce. The texture was different than the kink of applesauce you buy at the store. It was thicker and had some small chunks of apples, but it was very delicious!
Smiles from these two.
Yummy looks from these two also.
Got him when the spoonful was going inside his mouth. He did tell me he liked it though.
Good scientists performing their taste tests. Good job students! We had lots of fun learning about apples. We all felt Johnny Appleseed was an important person to learn about and that apples were a good food to enjoy.
In early October we planted some fall garden plants. First we prepared the soil with soil from our worm farm. Thank you worms for all your hard work.
We laid out a string to give us a straight row for planting.
Each student had to dig a nice hole, place their plant, add water and more worm dirt and then cover their plant
After we planted, the next day it rained and rained and our plants grew overnight! Now we are checking them everyday at school. We planted broccoli, brussel sprouts, red cabbage, green cabbage, spinach, swisss chard, and collard. 
