Sweet Ideas for Exploring Sunny Citrus Fruits
Nothing says “sunshine” like a burst of sweet, juicy citrus in the middle of winter. Since we can’t travel to the sunny south right now, bring the sun into your home with a few of these fabulous fruits. Here are some simple, fun and delicious ideas for exploring citrus fruits with your Rainbow Food Explorers. Remember to keep the focus on using your 5 senses to explore and make discoveries about these foods. Skip the pressure and let the experience inspire your kids to taste and try foods as they’re ready.
Exploring Diversity- A Rainbow 🌈 of Citrus- Expand your horizons. Pick up a variety of different citrus fruits, and try to include some new and interesting types beyond the usual clementines or navel oranges.
Have you seen minneola, Seville or blood oranges? Look for Meyer lemons, key limes, red grapefruit or a giant pomelo.
Choose a few different fruits and spend some time comparing and discovering what’s the same and what’s different about them, even though they’re all in the same family.
Explore the fruits inside and out, and notice their amazing colours, textures, shapes, sizes, smells and tastes.
Lemon Love 🍋 - We don’t usually eat lemons as whole fruit because of their puckery, tangy taste, but there are lots of ways they can add flavour and taste to other foods.
Invite your kids to try squeezing fresh lemon juice over cooked veggies, chicken or fish or even into a plain glass of water.
Notice how the juice squirts out and how it changes the way other foods look, smell and taste.
Use a peeler or zester to remove and explore the fragrant zest from a lemon. Sprinkle it into a bowl of rice or other grains for a bright boost!
Dress it Up 🥗 - Even the youngest kids can help make the simplest salad dressing right in the bowl. Invite kids to squeeze the juice of half a lemon over a mix of greens and colourful veggies. Top with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Toss it all together and taste it - adjust the seasoning til it’s just right!
Counting, Organizing and Comparing - Food is a fun way to help kids understand simple numeracy concepts.
Start with a whole orange or grapefruit and invite your child to predict how many sections will be inside.
Peel the fruit together and see if you can see how many sections there are, by looking at the whole, peeled fruit.
Separate the fruit into halves and then quarters and talk about how many pieces each of these makes as you go. You might talk about how many people could each get a half or quarter of the whole fruit, to make this concept easier for very young children to understand.
Keep taking the larger pieces apart, counting and comparing the number of sections you find as you go.
Snap photos of the whole fruit, halves, quarters and individual sections to create a story or visual record of these concepts.
Sunny Sweet Orange 🍊and Carrot 🥕Salad - This bright orange salad is great as a side dish or even on it’s own. Kids can help with most of the steps.
Ingredients:
3 large carrots
2 oranges
1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons sugar, honey or maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon each, cinnamon and cumin
optional add-ins: raisins, chopped walnuts, fresh mint, cilantro or parsley - invite your kids to suggest what appeals to them!
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Grate the carrots and place them in a medium bowl.
Use a sharp knife to cut the peel and pith from two oranges.
Working over the bowl of carrots to catch all the juice, separate the oranges into sections and add them to the bowl.
Squeeze the rest of the juice from the orange pith and the juice of the half lemon over top.
Add the olive oil, sugar or honey, a pinch of salt and the cinnamon and cumin.
Mix it all together (little hands will love to do this!) and top with your add-in’s of choice.
Enjoy!
Did you love these activities? Snap a photo or video of your kids in action and post it to your social media. Make sure to tag us @rainbowplate and use the hashtag #rainbowfoodexplorers ! You can also send it to us at hello@rainbowplate.com - we’d love to see and share your experiences! For simple tips and lots more ideas and activities for exploring and learning about food with your kids, pick up a copy of our Rainbow Food Explorers at Home e-book or Educator Toolkit.