Apples! One of my all-time favorite themes to play and learn with. I don’t know what it is about an apple-theme but I just always really enjoy it. I was so excited to come up with some activities for our learning journal that were apple-themed since this is one of our favorite learning tools to use while home schooling for pre-k.

For more information about learning journals and how to start one, check out this post! If you want to see more of our themed journal activities, check out any of the following posts:

zoo-theme
ocean-theme
watermelon-theme
dinosaur-theme
ice cream-theme
camping-theme
name activities

In this post, I’ll share 13 different apple-themed journal activities for toddlers and preschoolers. Skills covered in these activities include pre-writing skills, color word recognition, letter and number recognition, letter sound knowledge, graphing, color sorting, recording information, beginning letter sounds, and counting!

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Picture graphs are some of the first types of graphs that kids will start getting exposed to usually in kindergarten and sometimes as early as preschool. It is a great way for them to visualize “less/least” and “more/most” while starting to learn about those concepts as well.

For this journal activity, I used do-a-dot markers to make different-colored apples all over the top half of the page. I created a horizontal picture graph at the bottom that has a row for each colored apple. When Kade (4) completes this page, he will use a red, green, and yellow marker to fill in a box for each colored apple he counts. When counting 8 green apples, he will color in 8 squares green in the green apple row.

Once he counts all of the apples and records his data, we will get to use the picture graph to discuss questions such as “Which colored apple was there the most of?” and “Which colored apple was there the least of?”

Being able to isolate a letter sound at the beginning of a word is an important phonemic awareness skill that kiddos will need to master as they are learning letter sounds, and how to read. If you want a great resource for practicing letters, letter sounds, and a few other early reading skills, check out this mini reader in the Oh Hey Let’s Play Shop!

For this activity, I thought of some fall words that had pretty distinctive beginning sounds. I went with pumpkin, leaf, sunflower, football, apple, and rake. I drew the 6 fall words out and then drew a red apple around each of them. I made 6 little apple leaves out of green paper and wrote each of the beginning letter sounds on them with black sharpie.

I set Kade (4) up with the little leaves and a glue stick, and had them determine the beginning sound for each of the pictures. He then glued the corresponding leaf to the top of each apple!

An apple taste-testing session is always a must for an apple theme! To go along with our taste-testing, I made this journal page as a way for Kade (4) to record his thoughts. For each different colored apple slice he tasted, he colored in one of the faces to show whether or not he liked the flavor. All three apples got smileys! On the right side of the journal, I gave him a chance to color in an apple to show which flavor was his favorite (he chose red). Since we have also been working on color words, I included a section where he had to circle the color word of the flavor he chose as his favorite.

To find those cute, FREE printable apples that I used to label each colored apple (since my kids are picky about skin on apples), you’ll want to check out this blog post: Apple Activities for Toddlers

I saw this little poem floating around somewhere on Pinterest and thought it was too cute! I adjusted it just a bit to work with this activity and it was such a fun way to practice letter sounds. I drew some different colored apples each with a different letter written on them. Kade (4) took one colored do-a-dot marker at a time and went through to dot all the apples of that color. As he dotted each letter, he made the sound for each one.

This activity works on following directions, number recognition and counting. I drew a couple of “apple pies,” and made a red dot, yellow dot, and green dot using our do-a-dot markers. I wrote a different number on each colored dot and Kade (4) used dot stickers to count out the correlating number of colored dots in each pie. The dots were meant to represent different colored apples. We pretended that he was baking the pies and following a recipe!

Using washable ink pads to count with fingerprints is a great, hands-on way to work on one-to-one correspondence. This means making the connection between one item per each number counted. I drew up some little baskets/barrels for this activity and wrote different numbers on each one. I set out a red and green ink pad and had Kade (4) use his finger to make prints counting up to each number. The idea was that he was filling each basket with a given number of apples.

Did you know that color words are considered sight words? Kade and I have not worked on sight words very much yet since those are taught more directly in kindergarten, however, since his sister Tatum (2) has been working on mastering her colors, color matching, and color sorting, it works well for us to also work on learning the color words! We mainly focused on the color “red” this week, but I also set up this activity as a preview of all the other color words as well. We used the first letter of each word and thought about what sound it might make to determine what each color word read. He was also able to use the color code at the top of the page.

Uppercase and lowercase letter recognition is a major skill to learn in pre-k. It is so helpful to enter kindergarten having some background knowledge of the letters, if not knowing all of them. For this activity, we worked on matching uppercase letters to their lowercase letters. I chose some letters that have somewhat of a different look than each other (unlike “C” and “c” which look exactly the same aside from their size). I only gave one other option for each letter and chose a letter that looks similar to make it more challenging.

Kade used do-a-dot markers in coordinating colors when choosing the matching letter, but I had also given him the option to use colored bingo chips (a great option if you’d like to re-use the page at a later date).

Here is another way we practiced color words during our apple theme! I mentioned that we focused on the color word “red” during this theme, so for this activity, Kade had to dot only the apples that had the word “red” written on them. Each time he dotted an apple he would say “r-e-d!” “Red” is a great color word to start with because it is short, sweet, and simple!

I had to throw this one together last minute because Tatum saw Kade getting to use the ink pads and she typically wants to do everything she sees him doing. I quick drew up a red apple and a green apple and let her share ink pads with Kade. I encouraged her to put red fingerprints on the red apple, and green fingerprints on the green apple, but she usually has her own plans. ;) It’s okay if little ones want to do their own thing for activities like this- they are still being exposed to the language, vocabulary, and concepts.

You know the book, right?! This activity is inspired by “Ten Apples Up On Top” and if you don’t have it, you need it! It is one of our favorites to read during an apple theme and there are so many fun ways to extend learning and playing inspired by the story.

We worked on simple addition with this particular activity, and used these snap cubes as manipulatives. I had him adding a certain number of colored cubes to a second number of a different colored cube. My original thought was that he would stack the cubes/make towers with them, but he interpreted it differently and laid them flat- which also worked fine!

Using manipulatives as a visual is a great way to start introducing simple addition.

We have been working on making this “magic c” stroke in order to write letters like lowercase “a” and “d",” both of which are in Kade’s name. The idea is that if he can make the “c” stroke, he can then easily add the additional lines that make them into “a” and “d.” Since one of our goals for this year is to get Kade writing his name with the first letter uppercase and the rest lowercase, I thought completing apples with the “magic c” stroke would be a fun way to practice some of those letters.

Here is another way we practiced pre-writing skills, but this time working on slanted lines. Since his name begins with a “K,” we have been trying to master the slanted lines needed to write the letter and it’s been a bit challenging for him to get the hang of. I drew lines slanting two different ways and used green and red apples kind of as stop and go lights. He was to start at the green apples, and draw lines connecting to the red apples. When he finished all the slanted lines, he used the same strokes to write the letter “K” in the box.

Like these apple-themed journal pages and want more? Check out our fall-themed activity book with tons of similar activities in 7 different fall themes! You can also find more apple-themed activities for toddlers in this blog post.

To access my digital learning journal guides with all my learning journal activity ideas organized by age group, check out my Digital Learning Journal Membership!

Be sure to tag us on social media if you try out any of these journal activities, and PIN this post to Pinterest if you want to come back to any ideas later on!