Apples ala Pinterest

See that sign up there. That is totally me (in fact I created it!) I am way addicted to Pinterest. I do have a problem though. I can't remember if I've already pinned something, so I keep repining things I've already pinned. No worries though, the more the better, I say!

This week my Pinterest inspired project was all about the apple. Of course being Johnny Appleseed Day and all, I had to incorporate something applelicious into my plans. Our first grade team really rocks it out for Johnny, so I had to go some to find things the kids didn't do last year. I saw this cute apple math project on Pinterest. It's great on its own, but a bit too simple for my kids.

I took the basic idea and kicked it up just a bit. We traced an apple shape onto red paper {which you can find here} and then added a stem and leaf freehand. Then I guided them to divide it into five parts similar to the one in the original project. I told them to think of a number in the hundreds place, with no zeros and no repeating digits. They wrote that number on the leaf and then showed it a different way in each section: in words, in expanded form, with base ten blocks and as the answer to an addition and subtraction problem.

After each student was finished, I had them write their initials on the back of each apple piece. Then they put their pieces into the bowl on their table. Eventually, I had three bowls of apple slices that looked like this:

I switched each bowl with one from another table and they had to work as a group to put the bowl of slices back into six apples. It was tough, but they really worked well together! I was pretty proud of them! This would have been a great time for a walk-through, but of course walk-throughs only seem to happen the instant your butt-cheek hits the seat after you just taught an amazing lesson like this one. 

Finally, each kid got their original apple back. We pasted them on to a black background with the clever title: 123 Any Way You Slice It!

We actually had a few more apple-tastic activities that day - one of which had me cracking up to the point of tears. I'll share them, complete with pictures, this weekend. TGIF my friends!