Frutti

http://montessorihomes.blogspot.com/2011/06/free-download.html
It all started with this wonderful free download from At Home With Montessori - as posted by Living Montessori Now http://www.facebook.com/#!/LivingMontessoriNow

We introduced the concept 'inside / outside' - as we used our senses to discover the many qualities of fresh fruit. The best part was making fruit salad for snack! :) We used the wonderful photos to open the discussion about each fruit - then we used the real fruit to expand the concepts introduced.

Checking out the pear!

We tried to get all the fruits in the photos so we had all the wonderful tastes, colours, textures and smells in our salad.

Feeling the texture of the orange, outside.

Feeling the texture inside the orange.

We could smell the orange as soon as we cut it!

The salad tasted awesome!

Even if some of the fruit was sour! :)

It was like a party in our mouth!

We all wish every activity tasted so good!

Shopping for Fruit and Veggies

Indentifying nutritional foods begins with identifying the basic fruits and vegetables.

In this simple activity the children selected their favorites and put them into the shopping cart, as we discussed the name of the fruit or vegetable and it's attributes. Does it grow on a tree or does it grow in the ground? What colour / shape is it? etc.
To create this activity I simply searched the internet for images - printed them out - then lamintated them for durability. There is a slit cut into the image of the cart where the fruits and veggies go into an envelope taped to the back.

The children love to play this alone - in a group or with a friend.