Fruit salad

Age group:
5-6 years
Food group:
Fruit and vegetables

Fruit salad is a refreshing dish you can make to suit everyone’s tastes. Whether you like bananas, pineapple and strawberries all in one bowl, or apple mixed with melon and grapes, fruit salads are a wonderful way to enjoy a mix of your favourite flavours. This recipe is great way to help 5-6-year-olds develop their cutting techniques by chopping up the ingredients.

This toolkit contains a recipe, along with ideas about how you could include it in your lesson. Take a look at the recipe below and refer to it alongside the teaching resources. 

The cooking skills and recipes have been developed in collaboration with the British Nutritional Foundation.

Fruit salad
Back to list

Available Teaching materials

Mathematics

Number

Pupils should be taught to: 

  • read and write numbers from 1 to 20 in numerals and words 
  • given a number, identify one more and one less 
  • Depending on resources available to you, you may draw, use plastic fruit, cut out pictures etc. to challenge children to practise counting from 1 to 20.
  • You may also have numerals and words cards from which children may choose to match the numeral/word to the drawing or collection of plastic fruit. Play several times, even inviting children to draw or select plastic fruit to challenge peers.
  • Children tend to find the concept of ‘one less’ more difficult than ‘one more’. The story of Handa’s Surprise provides a useful role-play opportunity to practise ‘one less’ as children can take it in turns to pretend to be the different animals talking fruit from the basket one at a time.

 

 

Curriculum

WALES: Use number names accurately, matching the symbol to the sound. Count, read, write, compare and order numbers, and appreciate the conservation of number

SCOTLAND: Students can use practical materials and can ‘count on and back’ to help them to understand addition and subtraction, recording their ideas and solutions in different ways

NORTHERN IRELAND: Develop skills in estimation of length, ‘weight’, volume/capacity and area

 

 

Fractions

Recognise, find and name a half as one of two equal parts of an object.

Recognise, find and name a quarter as one of four equal parts of an object

  • Again, depending on resources available to you, you may wish to cut up fruit with the children to talk about halves and quarters in context.
  • Alternatively, set up group work with modelling dough and play knives so children can create the fruit. Talk about how, if we are sharing the fruit between two, we need to cut it up so that the two parts are the same. Get children to cut the ‘fruit’ and then put one piece on top of the other to check that they are the same size. Tell the children that we have made two halves. Repeat for quarters if children have understood halves.
  • Use the downloadable template for follow-up work and further practice in making halves and quarters as well as cutting skills.

Curriculum

WALES: Use fractions to estimate, describe and compare proportions of a whole

SCOTLAND: Students can share out a group of items by making smaller groups and can split a whole object into smaller parts

NORTHERN IRELAND: Recognise and use simple everyday fractions

Measure

Recognise and know the value of different denominations of coins.

Compare, describe and solve practical problems for mass or weight.

If you have set up a role-play area with a fruit stall as suggested above, use this with the children to explore money:

  • If you have plastic (or real) money, revisit these to ensure that they can identify coins up to £1.
  • Display the fruits (they may be real, models or pictures).
  • Talk about how you will price the fruit. Bananas – 10p each, two apples for 15p etc.
  • Make signs for the prices. 
  • Ensure you allow time for the children to enjoy playing in the area and practise using the money vocabulary.

Compare fruits by holding one in each hand and asking which one feels the heavier.

  • Ask children whether the larger fruit is always the heaviest. 
  • Talk about how it is sometimes difficult to be sure which fruit is heavier, and ask the children what equipment they could use to find out. [e.g. balancing scales]
  • Together or in groups ask the children to order a few fruits, from the lightest to the heaviest. 

Curriculum

WALES: Recognise, sort and use coins; find totals, and give change. Compare and order two or more objects in terms of mass

SCOTLAND: Develop an awareness of how money is used and can recognise and use a range of coins. Estimate how long or heavy an object is, or what amount it holds, using everyday things as a guide, then measure or weigh it using appropriate instruments and units

NORTHERN IRELAND: Recognise coins and use them in simple contexts. Understand and use the language associated with length, ‘weight’ and capacity

Equipment

  • Colander

  • Chopping board

  • Knife

  • Bowl

  • Spoon

  • Measuring spoons

Steps

  • Step 1

    Wash the strawberries and grapes.

  • Step 2

    Step 2

    Peel the satsumas and separate into segments.

  • Step 3

    Step 3

    Pull the stalks from the strawberries.

  • Step 4

    Step 4

    Halve each strawberry. ADULT SUPPORT.

  • Step 5

    Pull the grapes off the stalks.

  • Step 6

    Step 6

    Peel the bananas and carefully slice into small pieces. ADULT SUPPORT.

  • Step 7

    Place all of the fruit in a bowl and mix together.

  • Step 8

    Step 8

    Add the orange juice.

Ingredients

Makes:
4
5
strawberries
8
seedless red grapes
8
seedless white grapes
2
satsumas
2
bananas
2 x 15ml spoons
orange juice

Handy Hint(s)

Try using different types of fruit, such as peeled and sliced kiwi, chunks of fresh mango or canned pineapple pieces.

Use other types of fruit juice instead of orange juice.

Download your Fruit salad related resources

Recipe:

Fruit salad

Download full teachers' kit

Do you want to print this?

You can download a printable version of this recipe, along with related teaching materials and activity plans

Go to downloads Back to tabs