The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree {Change of Seasons Book Activity}

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The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons is a sweet story about a boy and his favorite apple tree. It is a great book to teach children about the change of seasons. We at Kids Activities Blog hope your child enjoys this hands-on book activity of colorful trees. I try to be as concrete as possible when teaching my sons about the passage of time. Developmentally speaking children don’t have the capability to understand the passage and duration of time until about 8 years old. So, when you say to your five year old, “Ten More Minutes”, it is tough to comprehend. We use sand timers a lot so our boys can begin to “feel” what ten minutes is to experience.

The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree

Gail Gibbons wrote and illustrated a lovely book called The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree. I adore this book because of its simplicity, the connection the main character has with his tree and how Gibbons’ describes Arnold’s life during those seasons and depicts his clothing. All of these qualities make this book a great one to teach children about the seasons. To be honest, this activity was not planned. During our morning story time we read it and the boys were hooked on it. My almost 3.5 year old jumped up and said, “I want to make our own trees, mama!” So we went to the supply cabinet to see what we could find to make this book come to life. Here is what we found:

Change of Seasons

Materials Needed

Four pieces of card stock or construction paper (we chose colored paper to match the seasons)
Brown construction paper for the tree trunks
Four small bowls for seasons
Items to represent the seasons, we chose:
- Cotton Balls & White Buttons for Winter
- Brown, Yellow and Green Buttons for Spring
- Green Pony Beads for Summer
- Red Bottle Caps and Red Pom Poms for Fall
Green pipe cleaners for Grass
Glitter Glue & Regular Glue
Scissors
Gail Gibbons’ The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree

Book Activity

Approach

Gather and lay out the materials
Cut tree trunk for each season
Lay out paper and hand the creativity on over to your child

Life Cycle of the Apple Tree

The result was really beautiful. My boys both got a lot from the activity, really having to think about the colors of the seasons and the appearance of each season. You’ll notice fall in the above image is a bit erratic but there is a reason for that scene. My son explained that “it is very windy and leaves are flying everywhere!” The story telling that ensued, the questions and the commentary were lovely to witness between my two sons. Observing them in the midst of an activity is one of my favorite things to do as a parent. I hope you enjoyed this activity! Thank you for reading! Marnie

More Kids Activities

We hope your child enjoys this craft based on The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree. There are so many colorful activities that could be done to help children understand the change of seasons. We have a few more great kids activities that might help as well: