Learning with Fruit- Just Too Cute

Fruit may be my favorite food group after bread and ice cream (yes, both are food groups for this teacher). There is nothing like biting into a cool, crisp watermelon on a hot summer day or the smell of baking apples and cinnamon in the fall. As a teacher, I think it is important to introduce my students to things they may not have access to or may just avoid. So I brought fruit into the classroom. I mean a whole unit on fruit. Oh, and every activity was tied into a learning standard. Take a look:

The Math Market was one of our favorite activities. I laminated pictures of fruit and used plastic fruit as well. We practiced our money skills with some fun dramatic play. Each fruit has a price and the students used coins to pay for their tasty treats!

These are little rubber fruits that we used to make numbers on the table. Dry erase marker on the table comes off easily with an eraser and a clorox wipe when you are all done. We did all sorts of problems using these fruits for manipulatives. 

In week one, we did a mini lesson on adjectives.  Day 1, I introduced adjectives. Day 2, we started applying that knowledge to some fruit. Here are a few fruits we tasted. The student's reactions were priceless. I know fruit is expensive but I just bought a couple of each fruit and cut small pieces for my students to try. Blueberries and kiwis were some of our favorites!

Above: This was a two step project. First we made baskets from brown construction paper. 2 pieces per student. Fold one piece in half like a book and cut strips from the open end almost to the fold. Cut the other paper into strips. Weave under, over to make the basket. We stapled the sides, but you could use glue as well. Then, we made fruit for our baskets. My students wrote the name of each fruit and then one sight word they were working on. Most of my students get 5-7 words at a time. This was their basket to practice with all week. You could put anything you want on the fruit from letters, numbers, spelling words, vocabulary, really anything. 

Below: This was an easy center in reading rotations. My students cut out oranges to make a big O. The students still working on the alphabet wrote "o is for orange" with a model. My more advanced students wrote words that started with "o". 

This was one of the big projects we worked on as a class throughout the unit. We read Eating the Alphabet and decided to make our own class book. We found pictures in magazines and newspapers to create our own alphabet book. This was a great opportunity for students to learn about new foods and share some of their favorites with the class. This book was an ongoing project throughout the unit. We worked one day as a class and then I made it small group activity or had students who finished early work on it. I love making our own class books and letting my students take ownership. They love it too!

We made these cute watermelon wedges after reading the book Watermelon Day. Each seed has a sight word or a spelling word written in white crayon or colored pencil. I send these project home with the spelling list or sight word list to study for the week. The students enjoy learning from their own creations rather than my boring spelling list!