Apple Critic

Yesterday in Minnesota we had 80 degree weather. Today we got up to 58 degrees. Fall is starting to hit us and I am excited. It's time to bring out the skinny jeans, boots, and scarves. Oh - and apples!
Today I went apple crazy in the therapy room. My students became apple critics!

  We started off by talking about food critics and that a synonym for critic is "judge." What a great way to expand vocabulary.

I took my lovely sharpie collection and a piece of tag board to create  our apple chart. Then I headed over to my favorite grocery store and picked up 7 different flavors of apples - well mostly apples.
My various groups of students then used their articulation or descriptive language skills to describe the apples. We talked about how the apples look, smell, what their texture is, and most importantly what it tastes like. Then I asked them to rate each apple on a scale of 1-10 and pick their favorite.

 Here are 2 students taking notes on their thoughts of each apple. It was interesting to see the different opinions and a great opportunity to encourage different thoughts and perspective taking.

Just to have more fun (and because I am an evil therapist) I threw in a pear to masquerade as an apple. Some of my older students figured it out or at least said, "it smells like a pear." Those who didn't figure it out looked confused and called it gross. I guess if you're expecting an apple and you get a pear it might be gross.


When students first started describing the apples, they began with, "it looks like an apple, it smells like an apple, it tastes like an apple. With the help of my EET beads and cues, within 20 minutes students were describing the different apples as tangy, sweet, crispy, mushy, soft, pinkish-yellow, spotted, and more! Some of my favorites from the day were that one apple smelled like a rock and another tasted like a banana. Such creative minds at work. Plus, I got to snack on healthy apples all day.
Yay fall!