Recommended Age: 3 to 5 years
Purpose: to give the child a wide variety of experiences in food preparation
Level of Parent Involvement: Low, mainly supervision
Prerequisites
- None
Materials
- Skewers
- A selection of fruit (banana’s, strawberries etc)
- Chopping board
- Children’s knife
- Apron (optional)
Preparation
- None
Steps
- Invite the child, letting them know that they will be doing some food preparation
- Go with the child to the hand washing facilities, model washing your hands, the child may wash their hands
- The child may put on their apron
- Ask the child which fruits they would like to use to make some fruit skewers (dependent on what you have available at the time)
- Depending on the child’s level of interest and skills the child may prepare the fruits they choose, for example they may peel and cut up banana, hull strawberries, core and cut up an apple etc (you may need to provide assistance if using fruits such as watermelon or oranges to ensure they are in appropriate sized pieces to be pushed onto the skewers)
- Show the child the skewer letting them know that they are going to push the fruit onto the skewers to make a fruit kebab snack
- Show the child the pointed end of the skewer, noticing it is sharp
- Take a piece of the cut-up fruit and find the middle
- Show the child how to push the fruit onto the skewer to the end of the skewer, leaving a small gap (about half an inch or enough room to hold the kebab with two fingers)
- Invite the child to continue placing the fruit onto the skewer
- Once they get close to the top, they may make another one or eat the one they have just made
- Show the child how to slide each piece of fruit off from the skewer and onto a plate or bowl rather than them eating the fruit of the sharp skewer
Variations
- The same exercise, using vegetables
- The child may use pieces of cut up fruit to make a fruit person
