Materials
- large recipe card
- strawberries (1 per child)
- oranges (2 segments per child)
- bananas (3 slices per child)
- green apples or pears (4 slices per child)
- blueberries (5 per child)
- purple grape halves (6 per child)
- bowls and spoons
What to do
1. Prior to the activity, put each type of fruit in a different bowl. Write the following recipe on a large recipe card:
Count a Rainbow Salad
1 red strawberry
2 orange oranges
3 yellow bananas
4 green apples
5 blueberries
6 purple grapes
2. Tell the children they are going to make a rainbow fruit salad. To make it, each child will need to count six colors of the rainbow.
3. Point to each type of fruit and name the color. Ask, "How many different types of fruit do we have?" Help them count to six.
4. Read the recipe card together. You might want to add a picture of each fruit next to the words (for example, draw one strawberry, two oranges, and so on).
5. Encourage the children to count out the correct number of each piece of fruit and add it to their bowls.
6. As a variation, make a Count a Rainbow Salad with vegetables. Substitute one cherry tomato, two carrot slices, three yellow pepper slices, four slices of cucumber, five blue taro chips or blue corn chips, and six slices of purple cabbage.
-Cassandra Reigel Whetstone, Folsom, CA
