Fruit

StartSmart Pilot School : C&MA Church Tai Wo Kindergarten

《Begin Your Wonderful Journey with Fruit》
Parent participation is vital

Stage 1: Introduction

Close companionship between school and family is important in enhancing children’s academic performance and developing a healthy lifestyle.

Christian And Missionary Alliance Church Tai Wo Kindergarten emphasises parent-school collaboration. Regular communication is maintained and the school encourages parents to participate in voluntary work. Between March and June in 2011, the school carried out a project on a ‘fruit’ theme. Parents were invited to visit the school and prepare fruit refreshments for the children. A recipe competition was also held to encourage parents to make fruit snacks for their kids. The school distributed newsletters regularly to brief parents on activities concerned.

Besides, children were given ‘Joyful Fruit’ towels as birthday presents at birthday parties. A ‘Joyful Fruit Week’ was organised as well to promote fruit and health. Fruit-theme activities took place in each grade to promote healthy dietary habits.

With a great variety of activities and active participation of parents, the project turned out to be a great success. Many children who used to shun fruits are now eating them together with other healthy foods.

Stage 2: Start Smart!

Live: Joyful Moving Fruit

Objective: In this game, children roll the table tennis ball (each with a fruit print on the surface) along the correct path. They learn the names, colours and shapes of different fruits.

Time: 20-25 minutes

Materials: 10 table tennis balls (each with a fruit print), a colourful fruit tunnel made by polystyrene, 4 large pieces of coloured drawing paper, and 8 soft mattresses, and one ‘mystery box’.

Let’s GO!

1. Children have to draw 2 table tennis balls, with fruit print on the surface, from the mystery box. Then they have to hop or jump with both feet over 4 mattresses.
   
   
2. They arrive at the fruit tunnels on the table; there are 5 tunnels in 5 different colours: red, orange, yellow, green and purple.
   
   
3. Each tunnel is marked by a black-and-white fruit print. Drop the table tennis ball in the matching tunnel, and the ball rolls down into the ‘fruit hole’.
   
   
4. Children open the answer sheet, and see if their table tennis is in the right hole or not. If it is all right, state the name of the fruit and describe its colour.

Live: The Wonderful Journey of Fruit

Objective: Children understand that fruits are nutritious, juicy and thirst-quenching. A diet with fruit every day maintains bowel regularity, prevents diseases and minimises the need for medication. The physical activity allows children to understand better the digestive process and thus encourages them to eat fruit more often.

Time: 25-30 minutes

Materials: Fruit-motif hair accessories, story cards with pictures, hula hoops, balance beam, traffic cones, ‘caterpillar tunnel’, paper balls, and vocabulary cards of human organs.

Let’s GO!

1. Stimulate motivation:
   
   
   1. Through the story ‘No Picky Eating’, children understand that fruit helps bowel movement and is good to health.
      
      
   2. The teacher asks questions about the story to help children learn.
   
   
   
2. Physical activity:
   
   
   1. The teacher presents a picture of the human body. Show the children how food enters the oral cavity, passes the oesophagus and goes through digestion in the stomach, small intestine, and the large intestine. Food will become excrement and leave the human body.
      
      
   2. The teacher places different obstacles that represent different parts of the human digestive system.
      
      
   3. Then the children, assuming the roles of different fruits, enter the simulated digestive system. In the end they have to put the paper balls into the basket that represents the release of excrement.

       

      Obstacle that simulate human digestive organs: Oral cavity (moving through a hula hoop), Oesophagus (walking along balance beam), Stomach (moving through a hula hoop), Small intestines (walking along a line on the floor), Large intestine (crawling through the ‘caterpillar tunnel’), Defecation (dropping paper ball into the WC)

       

3. End of activity:
   
   
   1. After the physical game, the teacher asks whether the children are thirsty. Then they go back to the classroom and have fruit refreshments.
      
      
   2. The teacher halves some pieces of fruit and tells the children that fruit contains a rich water content, which is thirst-quenching.