Coffee Filter & Paper Plate Apple Craft for Fall

Apples are what fall here is all about because we have six apple trees in our front yard and spend much time in the fall cooking with the apples, giving the apples away, and sometimes using the apples to paint too. When I asked my daughter what she thought of when I said fall the two words that popped out of her mouth were apples and leaves. You’ll see the leaf craft we made the same day as these apples later this week. This coffee filter  and paper plate apple craft for preschool is easy to make and a super fun process. If I was doing this craft in a classroom I would pair it with some hands on investigation of real apples like a simple taste test between two kinds of apples, a apple hunt outside that culminated in making crock pot applesauce in class, or for older kids something like this experiment from Coffee Cups & Crayons.

Gather your materials. You will need some paper plates, some red and green paint, scissors, coffee filters, a spray bottle, regular old markers, some painter’s tape , and paint brushes. Ignore the stapler I ended up not using it. If you don’t have paper plates you can try this similar craft from Gift of Curiosity.

Start by coloring the coffee filters. Ours were taped down to our cutting board because it was pretty windy outside.

While they color you can cut the middle out of the paper plate and use the discarded middle to make a stem.

Once they are happy with how much color they have added spray!

 

While the coffee filters dry ( and if you are low on time hairdriers are amazing at speeding up the process). Paint the apples.

Paint the stem.

Let everything dry. Tape the coffee filters inside the apple Voila!It was hot out so drying only took about an hour. While you wait read some apple books ( check out our favorites below).

 

 

Books About Apples

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Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins is a simple but effective and delightfully bouncy countdown book. The tree starts with 10 red apples but one after another farm animal swipes an apple , despite the farmer’s protests. The sing song rhymes are fun to read out loud and my 4 year old enjoyed announcing the numbers as we counted down. The illustrations look like wood toys and I thought they were charming but my toddler told me he was scared of the farmer’s wife!

Apple Pie ABC by Alison Murray is a really cute alphabet book and story about a dog and an apple pie. You can imagine what the dog wants to do with the apple pie. The way the author / illustrator weaves an alphabet book out of a simple story about a dog wanting to eat a fresh baked pie is awesome. I really like this book for 4 and 5 year olds because there are some really great words and they can anticipate what is going to happen. My son loved it. The vintage inspired illustrations were my favorite, I wanted to frame each page.

Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace will not be returned to the library on time. We got it out today and my son has had me read it to him 3 times, and his dad read it twice. Clearly it gets the 3 year old seal of approval. It also gets mine. The story is more than just a story about a family going apple picking at an orchard. It explains all sorts of apple facts but what I really love is that it also explains that there are different kinds of apples and each are used for different things. Since each member of the family is using their apples for different purposes that fact is driven home . Great book for preschoolers going on a apple picking field trip , making applesauce or apple prints.