Apple Stamping

We have a bounty of fresh apples here from apple picking last weekend!  Little M. was very enthusiastic about the "green" apples which were, in fact, very amazingly totally unripe golden delicious.  Not only are they the most sour apples I have ever tried, they also have a very dense texture to their skin (because they need about three more weeks on the tree!)  When your toddler hands you unripe apples, make apple print art?  Sounds good to me!  Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of them.

You will need:

• apples cut in half (at least one half for each child)
• washable paint in green, yellow, and red
• a pallet for the pain (I used the lid from a disposable Chinese food container)
• paper
• something to cover the work space to contain the mess (I just used a trash bag)

Look at the apples with your child.  Talk about the different parts of the apple to help them gain vocabulary: skin, inside, outside, seeds, core, stem, etc.  If you have a magnifying glass, use it to take a closer look at the texture of the apple.

Have them dip the apples in different colors of paint and press them onto the page.  Gently pull the apple off of the page to reveal the apple print.

Have fun watching them mix the colors and experiment with different approaches (such as seeing what happens when you use the outside of the apple to paint).

Happy Stamping!