Fruit and Vegetables

Personal Social and Emotional

During snack time, talk about rules that help keep us safe and healthy. For example, washing hands before eating, not running around while eating, only choosing one snack to eat and throwing away rubbish. Invite children to think of a food-themed role-play area they'd like to have in the setting, such as a restaurant, ice cream parlour or fruit and vegetable stall. Once they've decided, children can help add to the area. Can they work together to achieve their goal?

Communication and Language

At snack time, introduce some different fruit and vegetables for children to try. Encourage children to describe what the fruit looks, feels, smells, and tastes like. Introduce the names of the fruit and descriptive words, such as juicy, sweet, bitter, soft, and chewy.

Physical Development

Talk about healthy eating. Use a puppet or soft toy as a prompt to discuss how to eat healthily. Encourage the children to tell the toy what they need to do to make healthy choices.    Provide some playdough and utensils for children to mould and shape into different fruit and vegetables.                                                                                                                                                

Literacy

Play the Silly Soup phonics game to explore initial sounds. Focusing on different fruit and vegetables, sort some cards into the bowl that start with the same initial sound. Invite children to identify other items that could also go into the silly soup based on the initial sound.

Mathematics

Sing the number rhyme ‘Five Currant Buns’. As they sing, invite children to use their fingers to represent the number of buns left in the shop.    Slice some potatoes in half and trim the cut ends into different 2D shapes. Invite children to dip the potatoes into paint and talk about the shapes they can print.   Provide a balance scale and a variety of real or role-play vegetables for children to weigh, compare and discuss.                                              

Understanding the World

In a large activity tray, provide some fruit and vegetables for children to investigate. Provide spoons, bowls, magnifying glasses and large tweezers for children to use as they use their senses to explore the food items.    With the use of grow bags sow a mixture of fruit and vegetables to enable the children to gain an understanding of growth.               

Expressive Art and Design

Invite children to explore colours and colour mixing to create shades of paint to use when painting fruit and vegetable pictures.    Set up a role play fruit and vegetable shop or market stall. Provide fruit and vegetables, shopping basket, shopping lists, a cash register and money.

Focused Vocabulary

 Fruit: Strawberry, Banana, Pear, Apple, Melon, Blueberry, Raspberry, Orange, Grapes.  Vegetables: Broccoli, Potato, Tomato, Cauliflower, Carrot, Cabbage, Sweetcorn, Peas.