Lesson - Fruit

Welcome Song

Announce Date

Theme
Ask: What are your favorite fruits to eat? Do you have any fruit growing in your yard? Where do fruits come from?

Many fruits like oranges, apples, and bananas grow on trees. Other fruits like guava and blueberries grow on bushes. Watermelon and grapes grow on vines.

All fruits grow from flowers and most fruits have seeds. Sometimes a fruit has a lot of seeds, like strawberries, apples, or watermelon. Other fruits just have one big seed in the middle, sometimes called a pit. Can you name some fruits that have a pit? (Peach, plum, cherry, nectarine). Some fruits have very small seeds that we can eat (like strawberries and bananas). And sometimes farmers can produce special fruit without seeds, or with very soft or small seeds that are edible. Some examples are seedless oranges, grapes and watermelon.

True vegetables do not come from the flowers of a plant. Vegetables are other parts of a plant, like leaves (lettuce, spinach) or the roots (carrots, potatoes) or even the seeds of the plant (like corn, peas and beans). Some foods that we call vegetables are really fruits but we consider them vegetables because they are not sweet like most fruits. These include: tomatoes, squash, peppers, cucumber and avocados.

(I created this PDF file of various fruits (using Microsoft Word clip art) and copied it to my Color Nook.  Rather than printing out the photos, I held up the Nook so the kids could see the fruits and had them guess what they were.  The photos start out easy (oranges, apples) and end with some less common fruits (fig, dates).)

Ask: Do you know what dried grapes are called?  (Raisins) What about dried plums? (Prunes)

Fruits are not only sweet and taste good, they are also very good for us. They are full of vitamins and anti-oxidants which help make our bodies strong and protect us from getting sick.

Worksheet: Fruit Kebab patterns (p.233 in Brain Quest Workbook: Pre-K)

Story
Ten Apples Up On Top
by Dr. Seuss
This is a classic beginner reader book with lots of repetition and rhyming.  It incorporates the theme with the number for the day.

Spanish Vocabulary
Me gustan = I like
For each fruit, say I like [name of fruit]
manzanas = apples (Me gustan las manzanas)
uvas = grapes (Me gustan las uvas)
fresas = strawberries (Me gustan las fresas)
peras = pears (Me gustan las peras)

Letter of the Day - G
Garden starts with G. Ask: Can you think of any fruits that start with G? (Grapes, Guava, Grapefruit)
Worksheet: A Grape-Eating Gorilla (p.25 in Scholastic Success with Kindergarten)

Number of the Day - 10
Counting fruits.  (I used the fruit pieces from the cooperative board game Orchard by Haba which was the first board game I bought for Aaron.)  Each child counted out one type of fruit (there are 10 each of apples, pears, plums and cherries).
Worksheet: Watermelon dot-to-dot (p.70 in Big Activity Ages 4 & Up)

Craft
Grape painting use a cork (inspired by a flower craft on s.b. creatively) 

This was my test case I put together the night before.  After the paint dried, I drew in the stem, vine and leaf.  I just gave the kids green construction paper, a clean wine cork and some purple paint.  They had fun stamping the paint on the paper and results were varied.

Closing Song
Apples and Bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat, eat apples and bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat, eat apples and bananas

I like to ate, ate, ate, ate ay-ples and bay-nay-nays
I like to ate, ate, ate, ate ay-ples and bay-nay-nays

I like to eat, eat, eat, eat eep-ples and bee-nee-nees
I like to eat, eat, eat, eat eep-ples and bee-nee-nees

I like to ite, ite, ite, ite i-pels and bi-ni-nis
I like to ite, ite, ite, ite i-pels and bi-ni-nis

I like to oat, oat, oat, oat o-pals and bo-no-nose
I like to oat, oat, oat, oat o-pals and bo-no-nose

I like to oot, oot, oot, oot oop-ples and boo-noo-noos
I like to oot, oot, oot, oot oop-ples and boo-noo-noos