Session #1 : Discovering plants – cutting and using fruits
and vegetables
Whatever students’ abilities, introducing or revising key vocabulary is
essential and should be done throughout the sequence.
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Naming: Presentation of different fruits and vegetables as
well as peas/beans. For comparison, we used fruits and vegetables grown in
Martinique (orange, watermelon, pineapple, banana, cucumber, tomato…) and elsewhere (apple, grapes, kiwi…). With the teacher’s help,
students name fruits and vegetables presented and say whether these grow in
Martinique or whether they come from another country.
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Cutting: The teacher chooses four or five fruits and
vegetables for cutting. This is in order to introduce vocabulary
progressively, especially with younger children. Using fruits of different
types and sizes, students can note differences in the shapes, sizes and
colour of seeds. Students will remark that there are no seeds in vegetables
and that certain fruits like the tomato are eaten as vegetables.
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Cutting the fruits and vegetables allows for the introduction of new
vocabulary and the consolidation of previously acquired vocabulary. At the
end of this activity, students should have two groups of vocabulary : one
group composed of fruit and vegetable names (lettuce, pineapple, banana, tomato, cucumber), the other group relative to the parts of the fruits and vegetables (skin, seed, leaf/leaves, flesh/pulp, stem, core) Having worked with children 3 to 5 years, I limited the number of new
words per session to five and used the simplest most common terms. See
Document 1_Vocabulary The Apple as well as Material 1_Colour the parts of
the apple, Material 2_Colour the parts of the apple, Material 3_Name the
parts of the apple.
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Taste and self expression: Students may now taste the
fruits and vegetables and express themselves. Vocab :
I like…/I don’t like…./It’s sweet/sour/bitter. See Material 4_
Expressing likes and dislikes
Going further
- Visit to the local supermarket’s fruit and vegetable section
- Visit to the local market
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Cooking with fruits and veggies – making fruit smoothies, an apple pie, a
pineapple upside down cake…
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Make an intercultural food chart: Foods from home/ Foods from far away.
Under each column next to each fruit children place stickers of happy or sad
faces to indicate likes and dislikes. The fruit with the most ‘happy faces’
wins and has to be brought in for snack the following week.