This lovely story about how the apple got its star come from the Waldorf schools. You can read the original English here.

The story tells about a little seed that is sleeping in the earth until one morning it is awakened by Mother (or Father) Sun. After it pokes its head up out of the soil, it is enchanted by all the sights of nature that surround him. That night, he sees the dark sky full of stars and wishes to have one for himself. A fairy visits him and tells him that he will have his wish granted if he works hard to grow strong and fill himself with love. Eventually the seed becomes a tree with little buds, and the tree becomes a father/mother to the little pink buds. He takes such loving care of them and is so happy, that he forgets all about his wish to have a star. When the fairy returns, the tree is full of red apples, and he tells the fairy that he no longer needs a star of his own. So she declares that she will hide a star inside each apple for the little children to find.

After we read the story, I cut open an apple for the children to see the star. I think that was the best part 🙂  I’m not sure how many of the children had ever seen the star inside of the apple. The trick is to cut it through the “equator” – not from stem to bottom. Makes it trickier to cut up for eating, but it does reveal the magic!

As it turns out, this story was rather challenging. It was a little long and a little too hard for my beginners to understand. I think in the future, I will either save this for a second-year lesson or simplify it some more.

Because it was challenging for my 3rd & 4th-graders, I decided not to tell this story to my 1st & 2nd-graders. I told them the somewhat creepy Halloween-time story of the green ribbon instead….

This story is available on the Great Story Reading Project 🙂