When life gives you lemons...
Today when Becky arrived at the centre, she brought along with her a big bag. “What is it?”, everyone wondered and after morning tea - we found out.
“Lemons!”, one of our little ones said - just as bright yellow lemons were emptied onto the table.
There was also another fruit in the bag that looked like a lemon, but was bigger and rounder. “What do you think this is?”, Becky asked. “Is it an orange?”, our tamariki guessed.
This called for a taste test. Becky carefully sliced up some of the lemons and some of the ‘mystery fruit’ and invited our little ones to taste the difference. Words such as sour and juicy were used to describe the fruit with many children noticing the little pips at the centre of the slices. After a lot of tasting (our tamariki love exploring using their taste buds!!) they still couldn’t put their finger on it. “This fruit is called a grapefruit. It is a family member of the orange.”, Becky explained.
With the lemons and grapefruit spread out on the table, everyone was curious to find out what was going to happen next. Soon, little blue & purple devices were added to the table. It didn’t take our little ones long to guess that we were going to be making lemonade!! Yum!! 😋
“So, what do we need to make lemonade?”, Becky asked. “Lemons!!”, they all shouted in unison. But this Buckle My Shoe lemonade was going to have a special grapefruit twist!
Each child was invited to have a turn at using the manual juicer and this required a lot of strength, hand-eye coordination and patience. It was a bit tricky getting the lemons and grapefruit to stay ‘sitting’ on the juicer without slipping off when pressure was added. But with determination and a thirst for some lemonade, our little ones were able to persevere until all the juice had been squeezed out. 👍
Taking turns is not always an easy thing to do – especially when there is an exciting opportunity in front of you, so experiences like these provide opportunities for children to build up their “patience muscles” which help in social interactions.
With a whole jug needing to be filled, a lot of lemons and grapefruit were sliced and squeezed – and our little ones carefully poured the juice from the collection tray into the jug. Each time, they checked to see how much they were adding and how much more would be needed to fill the jug.
By pouring, filling and measuring, our little ones are exploring early mathematical concepts such as measurement and volume in a fun and exciting way!
Once the jug was full, a little bit of sugar was added to balance the sourness out - along with some water - and we all enjoyed a glass for afternoon tea. While we were drinking the lemonade, we had discussions about the different kinds of fruits we enjoy eating and some other juice combinations we could create at Buckle My Shoe. Perhaps we could create our very own mini-sized juice stand? 🤔
What a wonderful way to boost our immunity during the winter months! 😊