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Apple Printing

It’s fall! I don’t usually get into new seasons or upcoming holidays early but for some reason, I’ve been getting really excited about fall activities over the last few days. {And it’s definitely not the weather!}

So one of our first activities to welcome fall was some simple apple printing!

 

Try this quick and simple fall art activity: Apple printing is fun for toddlers, preschooler, and older kids, too!

(E was 2 years and 10 months old.)

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Materials for Apple Printing

 

I cut an apple into three pieces, poured some liquid watercolors into paper plates with E’s help, and put down some poster board on the table.

First off, E removed the sticker from the apple – apparently, even printing apples can’t have stickers 😉

 

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But after that, she was ready for some serious apple printing!

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After I saw that the prints didn’t exactly look like I thought they would, I tried to re-cut to make the surface smoother but apparently, it’s not that easy to make a truly straight cut in an apple…

E didn’t really mind either way and experimented with one of the quarters while I was re-cutting,

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but went right back to the half afterward.

The new cut made slightly better prints – still not how I’d envisioned it but it didn’t diminish E’s enjoyment of this activity at all.

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She tried “patting down” the apple

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and even stood up on her chair to push down on the apple.

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After a while, the poster board became quite colorful!

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E proceeded to bang the apple on the paper several times,

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held it over her head to get a good look

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and dropped it!

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All this exploration seemed to make her hungry, and she asked for a different apple she could eat 🙂

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She kept switching between eating the red apple and printing with the green – and never got confused once!

Towards the end of the activity, E tried the quarter again and banged it around a bit as well.

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While we didn’t get the obvious “apple prints” I’d thought we would, this was absolutely great fun for E, she thoroughly explored her apple, and she liked the results enough that she suggested that Papa should take the poster board to work tomorrow 🙂

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Additional suggestions:

  • I think liquid watercolors just don’t lend themselves to easily making full prints of the cut side of the apple. Next time, I want to try tempera paint for “fuller” results.
  • Cut the apple horizontally or diagonally.
  • Make prints with an uncut apple.
  • Use more than one apple to allow for even more exploration (stacking, comparing, etc.)

 

Are you in the mood for fall yet? What fall activities have you done – either during an early start this year or in years past? Tell me about it in the comments!

 

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Comments

  5. Might be even more fun with a couple different foods to explore the different textures and prints each make. And I would recommend tempura to get a good print, but how fun! And thanks for linking up to the Learn Through Play hop! Check back for more fun activities throughout the month and please share the fun!

    Reply

  6. I love how you used different apple shapes. I’ve always just cut the apple in half and used that. Next time I will cut slices and even have her roll the apple with paint. Great idea! Thank you for sharing at our Pinning for Play link party!

    Reply

  9. I love apple printing – looks like your wee one had such fun! And the apple rolling is a great idea too! We used apple prints to do some measuring – my wee one thought it was a fun way to measure – adding paint to any activity seems to make it more fun for my little guy! Your wee one is adorable I love her little orange dress 🙂

    Reply

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