Apple Extravaganza – Day 1!!

Welcome, my friends, to Day 1 of our Apple Extravaganza and celebration of the beginning of Fall!  The next 5 days will be full of exciting and SIMPLE (which usually means cheap – which usually means a happy husband! ) crafts, activities, and recipes that all have to do with APPLES!  There will always be an Apple Activity to do during the day with your kids, as well as some Apple Fun around the dinner table (be prepared for some side-splitting Apple jokes!).  Get ready, Mommies, to WOW your kids with all of the fabulous Fall fun you are about to bestow on them as you build your happy home!   So grab a bag of Grannies and let’s start the magic!

Day 1 Apple Activity –

Get a nice, big, juicy apple and put it in a brown lunch bag.  Gather your kids around and tell them that you have something special in the bag that you will be celebrating all week long – but don’t tell them exactly what it is.  Challenge your kids to a game of Twenty Questions – they have to ask you “Yes” or “No” answer questions about what they think is in the bag.  For example, “Is it something you can eat?” or “Is it the size of a baseball?”  Keep playing the game until someone discovers what is in your lunchbag!

After the game, hold the apple up for them to see.  Have everyone make comments about what they love about apples (they are so shiny, you can make many different recipes using apples, etc.)  Then tell your kids that God did an extra special thing when He created the apple.

Share the following story called The Little Red House With No Windows and No Doors and a Star Inside by Caroline Sherwin Bailey…

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was tired of all his toys and tired of all his play.  “What shall I do?” he asked his mother.  And his mother, who always knew beautiful things for little boys to do said, “You shall go on a journey and find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside.”  This really made the little boy wonder.  Usually his mother had good ideas, but he thought that this one was very strange.  “Which way shall I go?” he asked his mother.  “I don’t know where to find a little red house with no doors and no window.  “Go down the lane past the farmer’s house and over the hill,” said his mother, “and then hurry back as soon as you can and tell me all about your journey.”

So the little boy put on his cap and his jacket and started out.  He had not gone very far down the lane when he came to a merry little girl dancing in the sunshine.  Her cheeks were like pink blooms’ petals and she was singing like a robin.  “Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?” asked the little boy.  The girl laughed, “Ask my father, the farmer,” she said.  “Perhaps he knows.”

So the little boy went on until he came to the great brown barn where the farmer kept barrels of fat potatoes and baskets of yellow squashes and golden pumpkins.  The farmer himself stood in the doorway looking out over the green pastures and yellow grain fields.  “Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?” asked the little boy of the farmer.  The farmer laughed too.  “I lived a great many years and I never saw one.” he chuckled, ” but ask Granny who lives at the foot of the hill.  She knows how to make molasses, taffy,  popcorn balls, and red mittens!  Perhaps she can direct you.”

So the little boy went on farther still, until he came to the Granny, sitting in her pretty garden of herbs and marigolds.  She was wrinkled as a walnut and as smiling as the sunshine.  “Please, Dear Granny,” said the little boy.  “Where shall I find a little  red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?”  Granny was knitting a red mitten, and when she heard the little boy’s question, she laughed so cheerily that the wool ball rolled off her lap and down the little pebbly path.  “I should like to find that little house myself,” she chuckled.  “I would be warm when the frosty night comes and the starlight would by prettier than a candle.  But ask the wind who blows about so much and listens at all the chimneys.  Perhaps the wind can direct you.”

So the little boy took off his cap and tipped it politely to the Granny and went on up the hill rather sorrowfully.  He wondered if his mother, who usually knew almost everything, had perhaps made a mistake.  The wind was coming down the hill as the little boy climbed up.  As they met, the wind turned about and went along, singing beside the little boy.  It whistled in his ear, and pushed him and dropped a pretty leaf into his hand.  “I wonder,” thought the little boy, after they had gone along together for awhile, “if the wind could help me find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside.”  The wind cannot speak in our words, but it went singing ahead of the little boy until it came to an orchard.  There it climbed up in the apple tree and shook the branches.  When the little boy caught up, there at his feet lay a great rosy apple.

The little boy picked up the apple.  It was as much as his two hands could hold.  It was red as the sun had been able to paint it, and the thick brown stem stood up as straight as a chimney, and it had no doors and no windows.  Was there a star inside?

The little boy called to the wind, “Thank you,” and the wind whistled back, “You’re welcome.”  Then the little boy gave the apple to his mother.  His mother took a knife (at this point in the story, start cutting an apple crosswise) and cut the apple through the center.  Oh, how wonderful!  There inside the apple, lay a star holding brown seeds.

“It is too wonderful to eat without looking at the star, isn’t it?” the little boy said to his mother.  “Yes indeed,” answered his mother.

Isn’t that AMAZING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

God put a STAR inside the APPLE!

As your kids gush over how miraculous the Apple Star is and how brilliant of a mom you are for knowing about it, go one step further and tell them how God putting the star in the apple is quite like how He put a star in each of their hearts – the TRUE star – Jesus!

“Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” Daniel 12:3

That is some serious APPLE MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apple Activity at Dinner –

Put an apple in the center of the dining room table and have everyone in the family guess how many seeds are inside.  Then cut the apple open.  Whoever’s guess is the closest wins!

Apple Joke – (write this on a small piece of paper cut-out like an apple and hide it under someone’s dinner plate)

Q.  Why didn’t the two worms go into Noah’s ark in an apple?

A.  Because they had to go in pairs!  🙂