Fruit

StartSmart Pilot School : St Philip Lutheran Church Kindergarten

《Mysterious Fruit Jungle》
Creative thinking combined with life experience

Stage 1: Introduction

For children, learning should not be confined to textbooks. The best way to explain to them the benefits of eating fruit is to encourage them to experience it in real life. They have to fully understand what fruit is before they can develop a habit of eating fruit.

St Philip Lutheran Church Kindergarten organised a series of games and thematic teaching programmes to promote eating fruit. To facilitate teaching, a ‘fruit jungle’ physical game was specially designed, and teachers cut fruit up in class to show it in greater detail. For those who resisted certain fruits, teachers first encouraged them to smell the fruits and observe the structure, and then they gradually develop up a fruit-eating habit. Besides, the school held sharing sessions and asked children to give fruit to their mothers as presents at the Mother’s Day carnival.

The school launched the StartSmart@school.hk Pilot Project with full support from the parents.

Stage 2: Start Smart!

Live: Fruit Jungle

Objective: To introduce children to fruits, and to train their motor co-ordination through running.

Time: 30 minutes

Materials: Fruit models, a tambourine, paper bricks, a balanced beam, fruit cards, traffic cones, a toy tunnel, and a music CD.

Let’s GO!

1. Warm-up exercise:
   
   
   1. Using the theme from the story ‘fruit jungle’, the teacher leads the class to walk in a circle; children walk and describe what fruits they imagine themselves seeing.
      
      
   2. When the teacher hits the tambourine once, children run forward and pretend to pick the fruits.
      
      
2. Game: Children first draw out a fruit card at the starting point, then walk over the balanced beam and hurdle over the paper bricks. After that, they crawl across the tunnel, bypass the S-shaped array of traffic cones and arrive at the destination. Finally they find the fruit model that matches the fruit card and run back to the starting point.
   
   
3. Cool-down exercise: Children sit on the ground and stretch their legs.

Live: Smell the Fruit

Objective: To introduce children to the smells of different fruits, and to train their balance.

Time: 30 minutes

Materials: Fresh fruits (mangoes, oranges, bananas and lemons), a music CD, 4 cups, a balanced beam, and colour cards.

Let’s GO!

1. Warm-up exercise: dance.
   
   
2. Game:
   
   
   1. The teacher halves 4 fruits and puts each fruit into one set of cups. Each cup is covered with perforated aluminium foil.
      
      
   2. Children have to walk along the balanced beam to the destination. Then they pick one cup of fruit and smell and guess what is inside. Then they pick the colour card that matches the fruit’s colour, put it on their chests, and queue up behind that cup of fruit.
      
      
   3. In the end, uncover the cups and reveal the fruits.
      
      
3. Cool-down exercise: stretching.