By Kylie P.

Editor’s note: Please closely supervise your children with any activities. To ensure safety, consider their ages and avoid hazards when selecting the materials you use in any craft or sensory activity.

I have enjoyed creating opportunities for exploration, learning, and play for my little ones since they were babies. I am certainly not a school teacher or a professional in this arena, but it is something my family enjoys. After a recent trip to the apple orchard, we came up with a very simple activity we’d like to share with you (and some adaptations for your children’s ages!).

A trip to an apple orchard is a great sensory activity all in itself. Many sights, sounds, smells, and tastes to explore. Perhaps you’re in a season where making it to the orchard feels like a big outing, and you’d prefer to take a smaller field trip, maybe to the farmers market or even a grocery store. All of these same activities will work. Take what route feels right for your family.

For young babies and toddlers, you might begin with narrating what you see and experience. For example, “Do you see that red apple? Can you touch this green leaf?” Narrating these things can be so beneficial for all ages. Though it might seem silly with a baby, you are exposing them to language and vocabulary!

You can also follow the desires of your children and see what learning they may find on their own. My four-year-old wanted to count the apples as we picked them. My almost seven-year- old discussed the varieties available and surveyed us on our favorite flavors, debating the qualities of each apple. They also wondered about what types of animals might eat the fallen apples later. We observed bees and flies eating the damaged fruits. Find what your children are interested in and go with that!

Other ideas for learning with apples:

• Slice open an apple and discuss the parts: seed, skin, stem, and flesh.
• Discuss the sizes of the apples using language like small, medium, large, smallest, and largest. You can have children sort or arrange the apples or simply talk about them.

Next, we made homemade applesauce! You could also make pie, apple butter, muffins, or any apple recipe you like. I love an easy recipe, and my children like applesauce, so this worked well for us. This recipe went right in my pressure cooker, but I have done this before over the stove or in the slow cooker as well. The recipe says you can use peeled or unpeeled apples, and we chose to peel ours. It came out with a beautiful texture and our house smelled amazing! If you choose to do this, you could get your children involved based on their ages.

Here are some suggestions for involving your kids as you make homemade applesauce:

• Older babies and young toddlers can help by washing the apples! You could put a bucket on the floor and supervise them as they swish an apple through the water and wipe it clean, or give them a brush to scrub them with.
• If you have plastic or nylon kid safe knives, consider if your kiddos might be able to help cut the apples into chunks. The pieces don’t need to be perfect for this recipe!
• Allow them to add the spices! The recipe linked here calls for cinnamon sticks, but you could also use dried spices and have the little ones shake in the flavors.
• Ask them to stir the apples once the spices are added. Stirring is a great job for kids of all ages!

We had an old apple peeler at home that peeled our apple skins into perfect little strands. My daughter said, “Hey mom, can we keep these skins? I have an idea for them.” I was curious and I love to minimize waste , so I encouraged her to grab a bowl and save them. After the apples were peeled and cooking, she asked if she and her brother could make Apple Spaghetti. I wasn’t sure what that would be, but she was on a roll with a good idea, so I let her go for it.

To her creative mind, the apple peels looked like spaghetti. They played for about an hour with what I would have seen as trash! They added some jars and scissors and scoops and suddenly opened an imaginary spaghetti restaurant, enlisting me as their first customer. It was a great reminder that so much learning and exploration happens through play.

Here are some other ideas for apple sensory play you could try with your littles:

• Paint and wash your apples. Using washable, non-toxic paint, allow your child to paint, wash, and repaint their apples again and again. We have done this many times with apples and pumpkins! I recommend doing this in the bathtub or on a towel for easier cleanup. Bonus – these apples can still be eaten.
• Apple soup. Let your little ones scoop apple cores and skins (so we don’t waste the tasty parts!) back and forth between two bowls.

Whatever this fall may look like for your family, we hope you find time to enjoy the season together. If you try any of these ideas, we’d love to hear about it!

We’d love to share your experiences on the La Leche League USA Blog, New Beginnings. Please send your stories to Kylie at [email protected]

More fall fun:

• lllusa.org/fall-family-fun-activities/

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