September 12-16, 2016
Meet Your Apple Farmer!
Farmer Kelli came to visit this week in Nutrition Expedition! It sure was fun going incognito for our lesson: it was all about apple farmers, orchards and the process involved in growing apples.
We talked all about how apples are grown from seed; there are several ways to grow an apple tree, but this was the least complicated to explain :). You can dry an apple seed, keep it in a cold environment (fridge or freezer) for 3-4 months, then plant it in the soil, tending to it and protecting it from the environment as it grows. It gets a bit more involved after that, but I'll spare you all the details! Follow this link if you are thinking of becoming an apple farmer yourself! Dwarf varieties take about 2-3 years to mature and bear fruit, whereas standard trees can take up to 8 years!
With the 4-year-olds, I took the discussion a step further by describing the pollination process. Did you know that in order to complete pollination (or cross-pollinate) and create an apple, a bee must deliver pollen from a different variety of apple to another blossom? Pollen from the stamen (the pollen-producing part of a flower) sticks to the bee, who then flies to a new blossom (must be of a different apple variety in order for fertilization to occur) to collect nectar. This pollen falls off and is deposited into the pistil (the egg-producing part of the flower), where fertilization then occurs. And there you have it, the formation of an apple! Bees have a busy job :) Read more about pollination here. We also talked about the process of grafting, which most orchards use for growing apple trees and new varieties. Grafting involves making a cut in an existing tree or trunk, and inserting a twig from another tree to create a new variety of apple. Read more about this complicated process here.
The toddler and 2-year-old classes enjoyed playing with a bee that I created out of a pom-pom, and practiced "pollinating" a silk flower. After our discussion, the children got to sample 3 varieties of apples: Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Pink Lady. It was a taste sensation!
We talked all about how apples are grown from seed; there are several ways to grow an apple tree, but this was the least complicated to explain :). You can dry an apple seed, keep it in a cold environment (fridge or freezer) for 3-4 months, then plant it in the soil, tending to it and protecting it from the environment as it grows. It gets a bit more involved after that, but I'll spare you all the details! Follow this link if you are thinking of becoming an apple farmer yourself! Dwarf varieties take about 2-3 years to mature and bear fruit, whereas standard trees can take up to 8 years!
With the 4-year-olds, I took the discussion a step further by describing the pollination process. Did you know that in order to complete pollination (or cross-pollinate) and create an apple, a bee must deliver pollen from a different variety of apple to another blossom? Pollen from the stamen (the pollen-producing part of a flower) sticks to the bee, who then flies to a new blossom (must be of a different apple variety in order for fertilization to occur) to collect nectar. This pollen falls off and is deposited into the pistil (the egg-producing part of the flower), where fertilization then occurs. And there you have it, the formation of an apple! Bees have a busy job :) Read more about pollination here. We also talked about the process of grafting, which most orchards use for growing apple trees and new varieties. Grafting involves making a cut in an existing tree or trunk, and inserting a twig from another tree to create a new variety of apple. Read more about this complicated process here.
The toddler and 2-year-old classes enjoyed playing with a bee that I created out of a pom-pom, and practiced "pollinating" a silk flower. After our discussion, the children got to sample 3 varieties of apples: Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Pink Lady. It was a taste sensation!
Super Sleuth Questions
1. What do apples grow on? (answer: trees)
2. What do you need to plant in the ground in order to grow an apple tree? (answer: an apple seed)
3. What type of insect makes it possible to grow apples? (answer: bees)
4. What is it called when a bee helps to make an apple grow? (answer: pollination)
5. What kind of apples did you try? (answer: red, green, and "pink" or Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Pink Lady)
