Apple Picking
Our first field trip of the year was apple picking! This was a joint field trip with the fifth-grade class. While the kindergarten class is learning about trees and seasons, the fifth-grade class just finished reading the book Esperanza Rising, which follows a young girl who must move from Mexico to the US and become a farm laborer to support her family. Ms. Carney, our fifth-grade instructor, likes to give her students an opportunity to go into a field to pick fruit and experience the hard work of being a fruit harvester We thought a field trip apple picking would be the perfect way to have a cross-campus activity and engage in a service-learning opportunity, as we plan to donate the fruit we pick to the Santa Barbara Food Bank.
We began our journey bright and early! Many of the fifth graders were dropped off at Lower School and enjoyed some playtime before we loaded onto the bus. Once we arrived at the ranch, I showed the students how these apple trees are being trained to grow along a wire instead of straight up.
And then we got to work!
After we picked more than 500 pounds of apples, it was time to take a rest. Each student was offered an apple (that I had picked and washed over the weekend) to snack on while I read a story aloud.
After the students finished with their apples, they got to throw their cores off the side of the hill!
It was a special morning for sure!
