Apple Printed Pinwheels Craft
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Every fall our Pre-Kindergarten children practice apple coring in the practical life center. The children core the apples, place the apple slices on a serving tray, and carry the slices around the room serving other children who would like to taste them. It is a great activity for practicing life skills, tasting a variety of apples, and using good manners. The children ask their peers, “Excuse me, would you like an apple slice?” The peers respond with, “Yes, please” or “No, but thank you for offering.” Apple coring and serving is always one of our favorite fall centers!
Our kids stumbled upon printing with apple slices (instead of printing with apple halves) quite by accident. One of the children chose to press their apple slice into an ink pad and make a circular pattern with the apple slice instead of eating it. It was a great print, but we refined the process by making the prints with paint instead. What you’ll find below is our preschool rendition of an APPLE PRINTED PINWHEEL!
Materials needed: Apples to core, an apple corer – for a good apple corer for young kids, see the bottom of this post (or apples can be cut in slices prior to the activity), paper to make the prints on, red/green/yellow paint, paint trays (or paper plates), old T-shirts (or paint smocks), red, green, and yellow pompoms, poster putty, and seasonal paper straws (for the pinwheel stems).
Invite the children to create by assembling all the supplies at a table. If the children are coring the apples, demonstrate how to safely hold the corer and how to press down to make the apple slices – NOTE: remind the children to never put their fingers under the corer, but to hold the HANDLES of the corer ONLY. Young kids are very proficient at coring apples with guidance, supervision, and a good apple corer! It is a challenging task for 3’s, but most 4 year olds can safely handle an apple corer to make their own slices.
To make the apple prints: Have the children lay the apple slice flat to cover one side of the slice with paint. For those children who do not like messy painting, a fork can be used to hold the apple slice. The children should make apple prints in a circular fashion to form the pinwheel shape (see photo below).
Allow the prints to thoroughly dry before adding a paper straw straw for the pinwheel’s stem and a colored pompom for the center (poster putty pieces work better than glue for holding the straws and pompoms in place).
The finished pinwheels are not only fun to make, but they are great fall displays at home or in the classroom!
Note: We have the Calphalon Apple Corer in our classroom and the grips help keep fingers away from the corer – Calphalon Easy Grip Apple Slicer
For more fun crafts and an entire unit designed around an APPLE THEME, please see the APPLES THEMATIC UNIT here on the blog!