Painting with Apples

It is apple picking season and there are so many different things to do with all those delicious apples kids (or adults!) bring home from the orchards. Aside from eating and baking them, slicing open an apple can be a great learning opportunity for kids and you can use them to make crafts.  This week, Saoirse and I sliced open an apple and dipped it into some paint to make some fun prints.

This was an activity that we attempted last year during our library’s storytime, but she wasn’t quite ready for it then. This is a craft that works best once your child will not just want to eat the apples that have been dipped in paint.  Saoirse loves apples and is frequently eating around the core or slices that I have served to her.  We don’t usually cut an apple right in half though, and that was a fun window into the composition of an apple for her.  Looking at the seeds inside, is also a great opportunity to talk about the life cycle of apple trees.

First, I sliced an apple in half, then sliced one of the halves in half again so we had different size options to print with.  To put out the paint, I covered a pizza pan with aluminum foil for easy clean up (but any kind of painting tray would work).  I used acrylic paints and little canvas squares, because my kids always seem to feel like more of an artist when they are painting on a canvas, but any kind of paint or surface would work.  I put different spots of paint around so that they could be mixed for fun patterns.  Saoirse and I dipped the apple slices in  the paint and played around with pressing them onto the canvases and paper.  She still preferred painting with a paintbrush, but it was still a great learning opportunity for her and a chance to try something a little different.