Apple season has always meant more to me than pumpkins, orchards, and cute fall activities.
My granny had a small apple orchard when I was growing up, and every harvest we had far more apples than our family could possibly use. Instead of selling the extra fruit, she chose to send trucks full of apples to orphanages (I grew up in a country where they still exist).
I think that memory is part of why I wanted our new apple study to feel like more than a collection of worksheets.
I wanted the kind of learning I love doing with my own child: beautiful books, careful observation, nature study, art and poetry, but also real science, geography, math, experiments, cooking, reading, and writing.
So Apples: From Blossom to Basket follows an apple much further than I originally planned. We look inside it, follow the tree through the seasons, learn about pollination and grafting, explore orchards around the world, compare varieties, run experiments, graph our tasting results, make an apple market, study Cézanne, cook together, and eventually make pie.
It’s very much our favorite kind of homeschool: Charlotte Mason-inspired in spirit, academically substantial in practice, and built around real things children can see, touch, taste, question, and remember.
And somehow, after all these years, apple season still takes me back to my granny’s orchard. 🍎
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