Monthly Topic Series: September

Back to School got the best of us, so we’re sharing our monthly topic for September a little late (but better than never)! Our monthly topic is…the apple orchard! Check out some of our speech, language, and feeding activity recommendations below! And since we missed out on our weekly book series, we’re sharing a book recommendation as well!

Speech - Way Up High in The Apple Tree

Practice picking apples before heading to the orchard! Create some paper apples that have different pictures or words with your target speech sounds on the back. Put them on a paper tree and “pick” them off, practicing the target word on the back as you do. You can add a game component by putting a worm on the back of some of your apples. If you pick a “bad apple,” you have to put all of your apples back. Whoever has the most apples at the end is the winner.

Language - Apples to Oranges

Use all the apples you pick at your local orchard to compare and contrast. Some ideas of what to compare and contrast include color of the skin, size of the apple, presence/absence of a stem or leaves, number of seeds inside, and sweet or sour flavor.

Feeding - An Apple a Day…

There are seemingly endless ways to eat/drink apples. Since apples are usually a familiar food item, they can be a great way to introduce some new flavors or textures. Using apples you picked yourself adds another element of fun!

• Apple slices, fries, or rings with dip (peanut butter, caramel, honey, etc,), caramel or candy apples, chips (dried), baked apples (whole), apple muffins, apple cake, apple crisp or crumble, apple tart, apple pie, apple cider donuts, applesauce, apple butter, apple juice or cider

The Apple Orchard Riddle by Margaret McNamara

From the publisher:

In this story the students learn a lot about apples and apple orchards—including how apples are harvested, how cider is made, and what the different varieties of apples are—while trying to solve a riddle. The book also celebrates how some children learn differently than others.

Frequent speech sounds in the book include:

• initial /t/ (e.g., Tiffin)

• initial, medial, and final /r/ (e.g., riddle, orchard, star, harvest, cider)

• initial /st/ (e.g., star)

• final /l/ (e.g., apple, riddle)

Key language concepts in the book include:

• Sequencing: order of events in making cider

• Vocabulary: ​orchard, pulp, sterilized, varieties

• Grammar: mental state verbs

• Text Features: facts, dialogue, riddle

• Problem Solving: Tara and the class take different approaches to solving the riddle

• Predicting: make some guesses - what do you think the answer to the riddle is?

• Inferencing: make some guesses - what do you think Tara is thinking?

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