Make a hearty fruit salad out of a variety of colorful fruits. Red strawberries, green and purple grapes, blueberries, blackberries, green melon, orange slices, apple slices and raspberries are all good options for the salad. Ask your the children to identify the colors of each fruit. If two fruits have the same color, ask the children to describe the differences. For example, ask if the red skin of the apple is different from the red strawberry, and if so, how it is different. This activity will provide a point of reference to help the children remember their colors.
Children can learn about their shapes from the fruit salad as well. Make a fruit salad with as many differently-shaped kinds of fruit you can find. For example, add slices of star fruit, oval slices of kiwi, cubes of melon and circular slices of bananas. You can also use cookie cutters to make different shapes from slices of melon. Ask the children to identify the shapes. Also ask them to compare the shapes of the sliced fruit to the shapes of the whole fruit. This will help the kids understand how different small shapes can fit inside a large shape.
Preschool is not too early to begin learning about healthy eating. You do not need to get into the specifics of individual vitamins and minerals, but you can explain that the different colors and textures sometimes tell you about the vitamins and minerals inside of the fruit. Explain to the children that this is why they should try a variety of foods, because the more kinds they eat, particularly of fruits and vegetables, the more vitamins and minerals they will eat, and the more healthy they will become.
Many preschool-age children enjoy helping in the kitchen. Preschoolers are too young to help slice or peel the fruit, but they can participate in washing the fruit or arranging the fruit in separate bowls or on plates. This is a good opportunity to talk about the safe handling of food and washing up before and after meals.Talk to the children about germs, as well as the importance of washing off pesticides or other chemicals from raw foods before they eat them.