Johnny Appleseed Activities for Kids
There are lots of different activities that you can do with your kids to learn about Johnny Appleseed. Learn about Johnny Appleseed Day, the history of Johnny Appleseed, and immerse your young learners with crafts, books, printables and writing activities.
We have even included some fun hands-on activities for younger students and some amazing printable packs to help you get started. Fall is the perfect time of year to learn about apples and Johnny Appleseed in your homeschool.
What is Johnny Appleseed Day?
Johnny Appleseed Day is a day to celebrate on September 26th, which is Johnny Appleseed’s birthday. It is a fun day to teach young children about the real person that became famous in American folklore. On this day, we honor the life of John Chapman, who made apple trees abundant in our country.
His dream was to produce enough apples that no one in the world would ever go hungry. He gave away apple seeds and seedlings to help those in need, as well as using them as a business and way to provide for himself.
The History of Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed is a historical figure known for planting apple orchards all over the United States. John Chapman was born on September 26th, 1774. The legend of Johnny Appleseed is that he was a carefree, barefoot wander, who wore a tin hat and traveled across the country tossing apple seeds to grow.
In the early 1800s, John Chapman was dedicated and professional nurseryman and orchardist. He made a living off of his apple seedlings and planting an apple orchard wherever he went. He bartered seeds for clothes and earned money from pioneers as he traveled with his Bible and shared God with everyone he met.
John Chapman owned over 1200 acres of land full of apple trees and even pear trees. He died March 18, 1845.
Johnny Appleseed Crafts and Hands-on Activities
Learn about apples and Johnny Appleseed by creating a fun apple theme for your younger students. You can make fun apple prints with fresh cut apples that you serve as a snack. Teach your children about the different types of apples by offering many different varieties for your snack time.
Talk about the seeds that were planted to grow trees. Create a Johnny Appleseed craft by gluing apple seeds to an apple shape. Then cut out the shape of a tree and have your children draw apples onto the tree as it has grown from a seed to tree that you can eat from.
Learn all about growing apple seeds, apple trees and apple season, with a fun apple craft and apple activities for toddlers.
Inside the MEGA Activity Pack you’ll find many hands-on activities such as: coloring, handwriting practice, prewriting, playdough mats, clip cards, cut/paste activities, read-trace-build-write mats, creating patterns, roll-a-dice graphing activity, simple puzzles, dot marker pages, and draw-then-write pages.
Reading About Johnny Appleseed
Books are an excellent way to incorporate into any specific theme that you are learning about in your homeschool lesson plans. Reading a Johnny Appleseed children’s book to your kids is a wonderful way to introduce them to the different legends and stories.
You can even ask them comprehension questions at the end of each read aloud. As a homeschool mom, this is the best way to see if they were listening and if they can narrate back to you what they just listened to.
Here are some great book suggestions that your whole family will love.
Johnny Appleseed: My Story
Johnny AppleseedReady-to-Read: Johnny AppleseedJohnny Appleseed
Learn About the Life Cycle of an Apple
Learning about the apple life cycle is another great activity to incorporate into a unit study about Johnny Appleseed. Legend says that as he traveled west, he planted apple trees as he went.
Grab an apple to slice open and save an apple seed or two as you learn about the life cycle of the apple.
We have so many amazing resources that you can use such as:
- Apple Life Cycle Playdough Mats – These playdough mats are so much fun for little hands, and a great way to help increase fine motor skills.
- Coloring Pages About the Apple Life Cycle – There are 32 different coloring pages all about apples, in manuscript, print, cursive and easy beginning words.
Johnny Appleseed Writing Activities
These Johnny Appleseed writing activities found in our Mega Activity Pack and Free Mini Activity Pack are a perfect addition to your language arts lessons and a great way to enhance a Johnny Appleseed Unit Study.
Johnny Appleseed MEGA Activity Pack
Our Johnny Appleseed MEGA Activity Pack has over 230 pages of learning and writing fun. This pack includes printable activities for preschool to older students in upper elementary grades. The Writing activities in this pack include: tracing, prewriting, copy work, draw & write prompts, writing prompts, word scrambles, crosswords
Check out the other awesome resources in this activity pack:
- 3 Activity Pages
- 52 pages of Coloring Pages in 4 different types
- Color and Black and White Emergent Readers – There are 4 different levels with 10 pages in each.
- 28 pages of Tot/PreK Activities – these include beginning sounds, clip cards, counting, playdough mats, read-trace-build-write mats, 3-part cards, graphing, wall words, differences and what comes next pages, and prewriting pages.
- 4 different levels of Copywork (34 pages)
- Writing Prompts – 34 pages of writing prompts in 3 different types
- 26 pages of Puzzles & Word Activities
Purchase the MEGA pack from our store with over 230 pages of activities for only $17.
Writing Prompts and Draw and Write Pages
Do you utilize writing prompts in your homeschool? A writing prompt is the perfect way to encourage and foster good creative writing skills in your students.
By using prompts, you eliminate the “brain block” of not having a topic. The topic and beginning has been started for them, giving them some direction while allowing their creativity to flow.
Another fun way to encourage creative writing is by using draw and write pages. These are pages that offer a writing prompt or story starter, but include space for students to illustrate their story as well. This is a great addition to your daily routine within the unit.
You will find more than 35 pages prompts in our Johnny Appleseed MEGA pack.
More Johnny Appleseed Printables and Resources
Whether you’re celebrating National Johnny Appleseed Day on September 26th, you live near an apple orchard and wanted to add in some apple units, your kids will love all the activities included in our MEGA resource pack.
Our printables make quick and easy Johnny Appleseed lessons to use with any unit study or as a stand alone activity.
Johnny Appleseed Mini Activity Pack
The free Johnny Appleseed Mini Activity Pack is a fun activity to get you started. This pack includes four pages of fun for your children. They will be able to color images, practice handwriting with traceable words, play a few words games – including a word search, and even draw their own picture!
Writing activities in the Mini pack include: tracing, word games, and create your own poem.
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