Live: Draw and Count

Objective: Children can compile simple statistics of their favourite fruits and practise arithmetic.

Time: 30 minutes

Materials: Different types of fruit models, sketch paper, colour pencils, sheets for statistic purpose.

Let’s GO!

1. The teacher reminds pupils of the names of different fruits with the help of the fruit models.
   
   
2. Children have to draw their favourite fruit on the sketch paper.
   
   
3. Afterwards, children share their drawings and say, ‘I like to eat… (name of fruit).’
   
   
4. Under the supervision of teacher, children compile simple statistics to find out the most popular fruit in class.

7 Reasons for Eating Fruit

1. Foundation of language knowledge:

   Children learn to use quantifiers (a ‘box’ of strawberries, etc.) and adverbs/conjunctions (‘firstly’, ‘then’, ‘after that’, ‘finally’) correctly. Older pupils can also tell the names, characteristics and benefits of different fruits.

    

2. Mathematics and science knowledge:

   Children learn to identify different fruits and compile simple statistics. What’s more, they can observe the appearance and the structure of fruit and explore how the fruit changes after it has been squeezed for juice.

    

3. Individuality vs community:

   Children play games with each other and obey rules. They learn to present and share their thoughts. They also know how to draw fruit.

    

4. Combat fussy eating:

   Some children only like to eat one or two fruits, yet if they find their classmates enjoy eating other fruits and if their teacher encourages them to explore, they will be more willing to try other fruits.

    

5. Fruit provision at school lunch:

   The school provides different fruits (e.g. apples, oranges, watermelons and pitayas) during lunch time and encourages children to develop a fruit-eating habit.

    

6. Health Fruit Day:

   The school organises the Fruit Day and asks the pupils to bring a fruit back to school.

    

7. Daily exercise:

   The project has raised the awareness of both children and parents. Pamphlets were distributed to remind children to do exercise every day (including the 30-minute round at school).

Stage 3: Sharing Platform

Ms Yeung Ching Yi , Headmistress

• This project upgraded our professional knowledge and it helped our teachers design the daily menu as well as other supplementary activities. The kids can now hold in-depth discussions about the nutritional benefits of fruits, which highlights their fruit-eating experience.
  
  
• The school has always put emphasis on children’s awareness of healthy food and balanced diet. Now we give them more classes to enable them to discuss related topics.
  
  
• We noted that some children used to drink fruit juice only. They didn’t know how to chew fruit, and they had no idea what fruit was like before being peeled. We taught them to view fruit from within by cutting the fruit into four or five pieces, and we taught them what kind of peel can be eaten.
  
  
• Our teachers communicate with parents regularly and remind them of the significance of sensory development of children. We ask parents to encourage their children to explore fruits from different angles. We also let them know that children should learn chewing properly (esp. chewing fruit) to enable full development of oral muscles.

Conclusion

As a whole-day pre-primary institution, the school can arrange activities throughout the whole day. In different activities, including group learning, physical games, music, art and other activities, children are introduced to the colours, tastes and nutritional composition of fruits. As a result, some kids ask to eat fruit, and they can even tell the health benefits of fruit-eating.