Learning About Fruits Inside and Out

Here's a fun and engaging activity you can try with your kids or students whether in a classroom or homeschool setup: fruits inside and out! Yes you heard it right, this learning activity is not just about identifying fruits but it is also about exploring it's taste and how the fruit looks like from the inside.

Montessori Inspired Apple Activities

I'm sharing our apple activities for the past weeks.  Autumn is definitely apple season and it’s the perfect time to explore this amazing and nutritious fruit!  Below are our top 5 Montessori-inspired activities that you and your kids will love in learning about apples.

Apple Letter and Number Cards

I love creating matching letter and number cards for themed units!  I’ve been doing this since I homeschooled my eldest and now Vito loves it too!  Today, I’m sharing with you our beautiful apple letter and number cards which we’ve been using for years so you too can enjoy these beautiful learning materials.  These cards can be used in so many ways.  I’m giving a few ideas below but the possibilities are endless!

Apple Number Bond Activities

A fun way to learn number decomposition this autumn is with the use of our Apple Number Bond learning materials.  Vito is currently learning tens and number bonds as preparation for early addition.

Apple Counting Activity

We’ve been working on apple-themed activities for the past few days and I just have to include this fun counting activity.

Fruit Unit: Inside and Out Matching Activity

We had a fabulous time last weekend examining the insides of fruits.  We did a similar activity years ago, but I didn’t want to put paints on fruits this time so I made this gorgeous matching learning material for Vito to work around with instead of recreating the insides using paints.  More details on this fruit learning material here.  This is easy to prepare and fun to work with kids!

Collection of Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  I hope that your day is as colorful as my post today. 
For the month of February,  my entry for the 12 Months More of Montessori Learning is all about how we learn and explore colors at home.   If you are looking for more ideas on how to extend your color activities at home, then this is definitely for you!  At 39 months, Vito is knowledgeable of all basic colors and I just have to nurture this knowledge through planned and spontaneous activities.

LEARN COLORS THROUGH NATURE FINDS
Last year, Vito and I started bringing home “nature finds”.  This was the time when he turned 3 years old and stopped mouthing objects.  We would bring simple things like sticks, pinecones, flowers or rocks, then placed them in a basket for more exploration.  We discussed the objects’ texture, shape, weight (heavy or light), size (big or small) and of course the color/s.  To simply demonstrate how to extend the “nature table” activity by focusing on colors, Vito and I collected and glued some flowers, leaves and sticks on a white cardstock and then matched them to their nearest colors in the Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) .


Because they are placed in a white background, Vito can easily identify the color tablets closest to the petals, leaves and sticks.  This is a simple activity that’s so easy to replicate.  You can work on rocks, different hues of leafy greens, flowers and more.

COLOR GRADING
We are now using  Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) for this activity.  This is a sensorial material for visual discrimination and perfection of colors.  I was a little bit hesitant to purchase it at first so we used a DIY.   If you skim through my blog, you might have read about our previous color grading activity using water and food coloring. 



I will talk about the Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) in a separate post but for now, here’s Vito trying out the yellow color (we worked on it one color at a time).  We talked about the dark and light yellow… and on how it gets lighter or darker.

COUNTERS
I love Learning Resources’ counters and we use them a lot at home.  We extended its use not just for counting but for color sorting and fine motor skills activities too!  What you see here are the Mini Motors and the Backyard Bugs counters. Vito arranged the counters on their corresponding cut-out colored strips.



IN FOODS
We worked on fruits and vegetables last year too and sorted out their colors. Vito loves our play pretend Farmers Market Color Sorting Set and he would often sort them according to colors.  But you don’t need to use this, you can use whatever you have in your kitchen. By the way, in this activity we are using the Montessori Color Tablets (2nd Box).

 


RAINBOW COLORS
Nothing beats learning colors through the rainbow!  We love our Large Grimm's Rainbow Stacker to pieces and the boys are using this in so many ways other than stacking it and learning colors!   I love that it provides different hues of red, green and blue.  Because Vito is constantly exposed to this toy, he’s able to identify the dark and light green, red and blue.  Mavi even made a LEGO Bricks version of this rainbow! 



ARTS
Of course, there’s the paints, watercolors and markers!  Explore colors using these inexpensive art materials.  We are not yet talking about primary and secondary colors, but occasionally I would show Vito that we can combine colors to produce another color.
COLORS IN BOOKS
There are so many books on colors but this book is our favourite.  Vito enjoyed this the most because he loves flipping the transparent pages of the book to see the result when colors combine.  Colours (My First Discoveries) is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers!


COLORS IN SCIENCE
This was an experiment we did last year and Vito loved it!  This is one of the many ways we show our kids how secondary colors are formed. See how Vito studied color mixing through this post "Color Mixing: Green, Orange and Purple".

EVERYWHERE
Colors are everywhere! Don’t limit yourself to the ones you have at home (objects).  Go out and explore the colors in forests, beaches, parks and just about anywhere… and it’s free!

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This post is part of the 12 Months More of Montessori which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Amazing blogs participating in the 12 Months More of Montessori that you should visit:

Easy Flower Science Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten | Natural Beach Living

Montessori-Inspired Skip Counting for Kids {Spring Printables} | The Natural Homeschool

How to Prepare a Montessori-Style Lenten Tray | Living Montessori Now

Montessori Practical Life - Caring for a Plant | Happy Mama’s Hive

Toddler Butterfly Theme for Spring | The Kavanaugh Report

Collection of Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers | The Pinay Homeschooler

Montessori-inspired Plant Activities with Free Printables | Every Star is Different

Montessori Flower Arranging: Practical Life Skills (Free Printable) | Christian Montessori Network

PB&J Bird Seed Ornaments | Sugar, Spice & Glitter

8 Must-try Insect Activities With Free Montessori-inspired Printables| Uno Zwei Tutu

Hands on butterfly themed learning activities | Welcome to Mommyhood

Exploring Fruits for Toddlers

Vito is 23 months old. 

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After, the zoo, farm animals and parts of the body, I decided to do a fruit unit for this little boy as he loves to name fruits whenever we are in the supermarket.  I like to come up with themed activities as it helps the child to expand their knowledge of certain objects and occasions, practice communication skills and improve their vocabulary.

 

Beginning Sounds. We’re using Hape Lowercase Puzzle.

Apple Prints. Color recognition and sensorial activity.

Bagging Fruits. A practical life activity that develops hand/eye coordination, concentration plus helping Mommy tidy up!  We’re using Learning Resources Fruit Counters.

Matching Real Objects with Pictures. Developing early discrimination skills (difference between objects), hand/eye coordination and concentration.  I made the fruit cards and you can get a copy from here or here.

Fruit Color Sorting using a Tong. Improving fine motor skills, pincer grasp, concentration and color recognition.

I love this tong from Ikea. 

As of the moment, our color sorting activity involves two colors, but I introduce one (new) color at a time.

He’s seriously concentrating.  Goodness!

Slicing a Banana. I was with him the whole time he’s doing this, reason why I don’t have an actual photo of the activity.  Another great practical life activity to introduce to kids.  This is an introductory activity of actual “slicing”, though we’ve done a lot of this using playdough.  He still has difficulty coordinating his hands.  We’ll get there though… need to practice more

And that’s about it! Thanks once again for taking time to read through the post.  Don’t forget to PIN this for your reference.

Check me out on Pinterest for more toddler and themed activities.