Johnny Appleseed Unit Study
So, school has begun in the communities around you and you realize it’s time to get in the gear of homeschooling. It’s a new year, so you need to start at the beginning, right?
And what is in the beginning? The ABC’s. A is for apple, so you begin looking for apple projects and apple activities and asking yourself, Is there anyone who represents apples in America?
Glad you asked!
Johnny Appleseed is a remarkable character and a terrific opportunity to build a unit study around. And this unit study includes a little bit of history, some creative writing, coloring, geography, vocabulary and parts of speech, recipes, and more.
It’s almost like Johnny Appleseed was created for homeschooling families!
This Johnny Appleseed unit study is terrific for younger grades with printable pages for lower elementary students. You could also tweak some of the work for older students by adding in other scholastic requirements such as online or book research, writing a short report, baking apple pie, or doing a science project involving apples, apple seeds, or planting seeds.
Who knew how many terrific opportunities could come from the letter A?
The History of Johnny Appleseed
The unit study offers a brief history of Johnny Appleseed. Here is a segment of the text:
John Chapman, known as Johnny Appleseed, is known for introducing apply trees all around the Midwest in the United States. He was kind to animals and the earth. He was happy and cheerful. He didn’t have a lot of things.
Johnny was born in Massachusetts. He grew up on a farm. As a young man, he worked at apple orchards for a neighbor. This inspired his love of apples.
Text from Unit Study
Johnny Appleseed and Creative Writing
In the Unit Study, your children will be given opportunities for creative writing, and utilize the Venn diagram to compare their unique traits to Johnny’s and find traits that they have in common.
They also have a writing project where they finish the sentence, “If I could plant any type of plant or fruit, I would plant …” and explain their reasons why.
Get the Johnny Appleseed Unit Study
Related Activities to Add to the Unit Study
If Johnny Appleseed planted mangos instead of apples, it might have been more difficult to find related material (and his name would have been Johnny Mangoseed instead). But thankfully, he planted apples, and there are plenty of fun apple-themed activities and projects you can do with your kids!
- These fun STEM activities for fall include several projects that will be perfect to round out your Johnny Appleseed Unit Study, including an “erupting apple” science activity, an apple toothpick tower challenge, and a paper plate apple handprint craft.
- Add some simple math lessons to your unit study with this cute apple tree math printable.
- The unit study includes an easy apple pie recipe, but I’ve always been more of a cake girl. And this decadent caramel apple cake hits the mark beautifully!
- While not everyone can plant an orchard full of apple trees, anyone can make an apple tree paper bag, a fun craft and cute home decoration for fall.
- Younger children will also enjoy filling in the blanks of this life cycle of an apple mini book.
- Older students can pull out their microscope to look at an apple skin, one of the items listed in this fun (and kind of gross) post, 100 Things to Look at Under the Microscope.
- Check out these fun and tasty ways to experiment with apples.
Books about Johnny Appleseed
There are also plenty of books about Johnny Appleseed. If you’re looking for a more in-depth study for older students, as a reading activity, or just for some fun storytime, here are a few books you can choose from:
