Summary: Learn all about apples and how they are grown - from seed to final product. The book describes many different types of apples and shows how they are turned into apple cider and apple pie. Many interesting "apple facts" are also provided.

Concept: Productive Resources

Definition: Productive resources are the natural, human, and capital resources that are used to produce goods and services.

Comprehension Questions:

What are the three basic kinds of productive resources? (natural, human, capital)

What natural resources are necessary to produce apples?
(apple trees, water, soil, sunshine, bees to pollinate, etc.)

What is a capital resource? (a good used to produce other goods and services)

What capital resources are pictured in the book? (ladder, truck, baskets, wooden roadside stand, wagon, cider press, pruning shears, shovel, watering can, fertilizer, etc.)

What human resources are pictured in the book? (workers who plant and pick apples; truck driver; people who sell apples at roadside stands; workers who water, prune, and fertilize the apple trees; person to operate the apple press)

Why do you think the workers pick the apples by hand? (Perhaps using capital resources to pick the apples would bruise them, or perhaps there isn't a machine that is good for picking apples off trees!)

Where does an apple farmer get the productive resources to grow apples? (Obviously, the farmer uses his own labor and management ability, and he may already own a farm, which may be inherited. But the farmer must raise money - called financial capital - to purchase many other productive resources. This money usually comes from personal savings or from loans, which the farmer must pay back from apple sales.)

Other Concepts: producer, capital resources, human resources

(From KidsEcon Posters©: www.kidseconposters.com)