It’s hard to think of fall and not have Johnny Appleseed come to mind. This playful, apple-themed short and long vowel sort is a must-try!

Scroll below to snag your freebie and then hop over and grab our Vowel Team Centers as well!

Getting Ready

The prep for this activity was super simple.

I printed the pages on cardstock for durability and laminated it to prolong the use.

Then, I cut apart the apple cards.

There were a total of 20 cards – four for each vowel.

Johnny Appleseed Vowel Sort

To begin the activity, we first reviewed the vowels: A, E, I, O and U.

I pulled out a short vowel tree and a long vowel tree and reminded them that when the vowels say their name, it is the long vowel sound.

Their other sound (like /a/ as in “apple”) is the short vowel sound.

I pointed out that one tree was labeled “Short Vowels” and the other tree was labeled “Long Vowels.”

So, what goes on an apple tree? Apples, of course!

I explained that we were going to read the words on our apple cards to determine where they belonged.

I had the first student draw an apple card.

She drew the word “hike”.

After she read the word out loud, we worked together to segment the word into its three sounds, paying close attention to the vowel sound in the middle.

Since the I said its name, she correctly decided that it was a long vowel sound and placed it on the long vowel tree.

The children continued to take turns pulling cards, reading the words, and sorting the apples based on the vowel sound until all of the cards were on their correct tree.

Grab Your Free Download

Ready to go apple picking?

Scroll below to grab your free apple vowel sort and then hop over and pickup our Vowel Team Centers in our shop!