Stryker and his fruit list

This week was Fruit Week at our house.  We made a list of all the fruits we could think of.  Stryker wrote “Fruit” at the top and drew all the pictures.  He also did a dot-to-dot of bananas that I found at www.kidsparkz.com.  I made him a ladybug apple snack by using a melon baller to scoop out circles, so it would look like it had spots. 

Stryker making fruit pizza

Stryker has already had fruit at every meal for the past 3 years or so, so we really had to get creative to do something different with fruit.  We made fruit smoothies, fruit kabobs, and fruit pizza.  We had chocolate dipped strawberries.  I let him have one of his favorite snacks that I don’t like to make for him – a banana dipped in a peanut butter and honey mixture, and then dipped in raisins. 

Peytra watching Stryker slice her banana

I let him slice a banana for Peytra with a plastic knife.

Stryker with dried apple rings and an apple ladybug

We made dried apple rings, and raisins.  The instructions that I found online made it seem quite easy at first.  Just lay the apple slices and grapes on a pan and put in the oven at 100-150 degrees.  Open the oven door every few minutes to let out the steam.  Not hard so far.  But then…”the fruit will be in the oven for 6-12 hours.”  I am supposed to open the oven door every few minutes for 6-12 hours??!!  Well, fortunately, the apples were done in about 4 hours, but the raisins did take about 12 hours.  I just opened the oven door whenever I thought of it – every half hour, or less often later in the day as I forgot about it.  They turned out fine.  The banana chips didn’t fare so well.  I had them in the oven for about 3 hours when we had to leave for the library.  I turned off the oven and left the pan of banana slices in there, figuring I’d just turn the oven back on when we got home.  Well, when we got home, I did turn the oven back on – to 350 for supper.  Once the oven was preheated, I opened it to put in the chicken parmesan, which was when I found the little burned banana circles. 

We sorted play food into two groups:  Fruit and Not Fruit. 

Stryker with the citrus creature

We made a citrus creature.  You take a napkin and twist the corners.  Then, draw a face in the middle of the napkin.  Lay it over an orange, lemon, or lime, and poke it.  It will skitter across the table or floor.

We played Guess That Fruit by putting fruit into a paper bag, and then Stryker would stick his hand in, feel it, and try to guess what it was. 

We made patterns with fruit by laying out grapes and berries.

Next week will be about gardening.