Janet Van Fleet Reads "One Green Apple"

The book: One Green Apple by Eve Bunting Illustrated by Ted Lewin

Farah feels alone, even when surrounded by her classmates. She listens and nods but doesn’t speak. It’s hard being the new kid in school, especially when you’re from another country and don’t know the language. Then, on a field trip to an apple orchard, Farah discovers there are lots of things that sound the same as they did at home, from dogs crunching their food to the ripple of friendly laughter. As she helps the class make apple cider, Farah connects with the other students and begins to feel that she belongs. The setting in the book was a lot like Vermont -- with a small school, an apple orchard, a hay wagon ride, and an apple press.

Activity: The children in this 1-2 class looked at four different kinds of apples and described what they looked like on the outside, while the classroom aide entered their observations on a chart -- yellow, green, red and green, and red. Then Janet cut each apple open, and the assistant wrote what was inside. The apples were cut in small pieces and eaten, with observations about their taste. The apples were different colors on the outside, but the same color inside.