Friday, January 9, 2009

Clove Apples


Aunt Eliza had brought Ma a large red apple stuck full of cloves. How good it smelled! And it would not spoil, for so many cloves would keep it sound and sweet.
-Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Today we made clove apples. When I went on the search for cloves for 5 children*, I had no idea how expensive this could be. One little bottle of whole cloves was $10.50. Yikes! So I got one bottle and told the kids they could make a design like a heart or something like that. I just wanted them to have the experience of putting the cloves in and smelling the spice. Their apples actually turned out beautifully. The other nice part about this "project" is that all ages could do it.

*3 of the children are my own while the other two are students I tutor.

Here are some pictures:



DS4's apple


DD10 tried to clove a lemon. She drew a heart on it as a pattern for her cloves. This is all the further she got because it was very hard to get the cloves in. She even used a knife to poke little holes. The apples were much easier.

1 comment:

Veronica Boulden said...

Love this idea! We've been reading these books out loud, too, but for some reason, I never though to make any of the things we are reading about. But, the books lend themselves to this so well!