This is an easy fruit salad EFL ESL Lesson plan for preschool children. How do you make fruit salad? It might sound like a recipe that is much too simple to do with a class of kids. Actually though, preparing fruit salad is something that works well on lots of different levels. It can be used with all age groups although it is especially fun with preschool classes. It also teaches lots of different types of vocabulary. Most importantly, making fruit salad is fun and it is something that most children like to eat. You can adapt the vocabulary and the complexity for different age groups and ability levels. At the end, either eat the fruit salad together which is always fun or prepare it to take home to share with families. Don’t forget to check for allergies with parents before choosing the fruit you’re going to be using. So are you ready? Let’s make a fruit salad!
What do you need to make fruit salad?
- A selection of different fruit – try and choose as many different colors and types as possible. For example: apples, bananas, grapes, tangerines, strawberries, melon etc. IMPORTANT – CHECK FOR ALLERGIES FIRST
- 1 lemon and a couple of tablespoons of sugar to sprinkle on the fruit salad (optional)
- A large bowl, a knife and a chopping board
- Serving bowls and spoons
- Containers if the children are taking the fruit salad home
Vocabulary we will learn in this Fruit Salad EFL ESL lesson plan:
- Names of fruit
- Colors
- Where the fruits grow
- Cooking equipment: bowl, spoon, knife, chopping board, lemon squeezer
- Action verbs: cut, chop, peel, wash, take out, put, mix, serve
- Imperatives – for writing or following recipes
Start by looking at each type of fruit you’re going to use in your fruit salad
You could introduce the fruit by pulling it out of a mystery box for smaller children or by describing it to older children and having them guess what it is. Look at the fruit together. What color is it? What is its name? Does it smell good? Do you know where this fruit grows? If you don’t have real fruit or prefer to use flashcards, I’ve made you some fruit flashcards which you can download for free here.
How do you make fruit salad?
It’s time to learn how to make fruit salad and work out our recipe. Go through the recipe learning the verbs you’ll be using and doing actions to help the kids remember them. As you go along, write them down or draw pictures so they have something to refer to when they are preparing the fruit salad. If you’re making fruit salad in an online class, show the actions and let the kids pretend to do them at home.
Let’s make a fruit salad!
You can either do this as one large groups with the kids taking turns to come to the front and help you or in smaller groups where the children are doing the preparation themselves. At each stage ask them what they need to do. “We need to wash the fruit”, “we need to peel the bananas”, “we need to chop the apples”, “we need to squeeze the lemon”.
Serve your fruit salad
When everything has been chopped up, mix all the fruit together with the lemon juice and the sugar if you’re using them. Let the kids serve themselves and their friends if they are eating it at school. If not, they can prepare portions to take home. Ask them, “Is it good?” and “do you like it?” and get them to reply.
Write and illustrate your recipe
Finish off the lesson by writing down the recipe to take home. Older kids can draw the different stages of the recipe and write the different actions. make them repeat the actions as they do this. Younger kids can draw the different fruits and you can label them.
I hope you enjoy doing this fun activity with your class. Let me know how it goes and if you have any recipes that you particularly enjoy making with your classes. If you’ve enjoyed this Fruit Salad EFL ESL Lesson plan, you can find more ideas for cooking in class as well as my other lesson plans here. To stay up to date with new lesson plans and teaching ideas, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page. Alternatively, sign up for email updates below.