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Fall has arrived. The leaves are changing colors, pumpkins are everywhere but so are apples. When I taught kindergarten and prekindergarten, I always had an apple unit. It was one of my favorite units that I had developed. My unit covered how the apples form from the blossom. Cut an apple across the middle and you will find a star (like the five petals on an apple blossom). Apples are a healthy snack. They can be red, yellow, and green and can taste very sweet to very sour. Apples are also the subject of the beloved folklore character Johnny Appleseed.

Children's worship lessons began with the story of Adam and Eve. As I was preparing the lessons, I realized that nowhere in the first three chapters of Genesis was the forbidden fruit called "apple". I was surprised to learn that an apple was not the fruit the serpent offered Eve in the Garden of Eden. I knew my kiddos would probably ask questions about the fruit, so I googled it. I read many reasons why the apple was given the name of the "forbidden fruit." One reason I found interesting was the Latin word for both "apple" and "evil" is malum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_(symbolism)). Also, John Milton's Paradise Lost, cemented the belief that the apple was the "forbidden fruit." Then the German artist Albrecht Dürer's famous 1504 engraving posed the couple of Adam and Eve beside an apple tree. ('Paradise Lost': How The Apple Became The Forbidden Fruit : The Salt : NPR). This is a very simplified explanation of how the apple became known as the "forbidden fruit."

Apples are one of the most valuable crops and the most consumed fruit in America. (Apples | Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (agmrc.org)). My personal favorite apple is the Cosmic Crisp. "To everything there is a season and a time for every matter; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted (Ecclesiastes 3:2b)." For me, fall is the best time to enjoy apples but also the time to enjoy the falling leaves and cooler weather.

--Tina

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