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Fruit Salad Feast

Make a festive fruit salad and eat it together.

Materials

  • various kinds of fruits (grapes, bananas, oranges, melon, apple, kiwi, strawberries, etc.)
  • Prior to the activity, prepare the fruits that will be too difficult for children to cut themselves 
  • plastic knives
  • large serving bowl
  • smaller bowls and spoons

Key Science Concepts

  • Many of the foods we eat come from plants.
  • We eat certain leaves, roots, fruits, and seeds.
  • Fruits have seeds.

Vocabulary

Encourage children to use words such as fruit, vegetable, and seed, and science process words like observe, describe, contrast, and compare.

Directions

Tell children you are going to make a fruit salad together to celebrate what they are learning about plants.

  1. Have children wash their hands.
  2. Show them the fruits for the salad. Ask, How many different kinds of fruit do we have here? Take a closer look at the fruits children haven’t encountered before, and have them identify where the seeds are: Where do you think the banana seeds are? What about the strawberry seeds?    
  3. Help children wash and cut the fruit, using the plastic knives.  Ask, What parts of the fruit should not go in our salad? (Stems, seeds, leaves, peel.)

Reflect and Share

Eat together and talk. Ask, Which fruits are the most colorful? Which ones are the juiciest? Which ones have a hard texture? Which ones are soft? Which fruits are your favorites? Tell children your own favorites. Have children draw the fruit salad.