Day 1:
On January 18th I started the exploration with the children. To introduce the lemon, the program I am at has a mystery jar, basically the kids can reach their hand in it to feel the object so they can guess what’s inside. Before letting the children reach their hand into the box we had them try and guess. The responses we got were very different but somehow so close to what was actually in the jar, for example some children guessed either an orange or apple squeezer. After we got their initial guesses we allowed them to reach their hand in one by one and guess. After everyone had a chance to feel we asked for their guesses. For the most part everyone thought it was either an orange or a lemon. So when we revealed to was a lemon everyone was ecstatic that they got it right!
Day 2:
On January 19th we decided to start a little experiment with the kids, we cut a lemon in half and put it in a jar. We all wanted to see how long it would take to mood and what the decomposition process would look like. For the rest of the week the kids came up to either Kim or myself asking if the lemon had turned green yet.
Day 3:
On January 24th we started our next steps in the Lemon Project journey. Today was taste test day! The children were able to now taste the lemon on its own and dipped in sugar. There was a surprising initial reaction from two of the kids (Liam and Anna). Both seemed to actually really enjoy the lemon and finished the whole thing. On the other hand the rest of the kids were very unsure about their feelings on the lemon, Ava at first wasn’t to sure how she felt but after dipping it in sugar she started to enjoy it. Owen and Sawyer on the other hand were not interested in trying the lemon (probably from previous experiences).
Day 4:
On January 25th we brought out some drawing material along with their creative influence the lemon! The kids were asked to draw a lemon and add whatever they saw fit. We ended up with a lot of different ideas such as Ava who drew her lemon with lots of legs and turned it into a lemon spider! And Owen who drew a bunch of different shaped lemons!
Day 5:
On January 31st we decided to let the children experiment with the lemon, we gave them each half a lemon and some tooth picks and tacks. They had a blast adding tooth pick arms to their lemon along with either tack ears or legs. The children started to develop their own ideas on what the lemon could be which is how they created the lemon version of Mickey Mouse’s club house along with lemon space ships!
Day 6:
On February 2nd we decided to bring our journey with the lemon a step further by introducing the lemon as not food but a paint brush. We gave each of the children half a lemon and a piece of paper, we put out three dishes of paint, Yellow, Red, and Blue to see what the children would paint. We got a mix of reactions but the thing the children loved the most was being able to mix the colours to get new ones, they got so excited when they were able to mix colours together to get green and purple.
Lemon Update: (February 1st, 2024)
The Lemons in the jar are getting significantly more green than the last update.
Day 7:
On February 7th we decided to make lemonade with the kids! We got a lot of mixed reviews but for the most part they loved it. We gave them each a cup and half a lemon, then we came around to each kid with the lemon juicer and allowed them to try and push down the juice the lemon on there own (with some help if needed). We had a couple cups of sugar and water out along with some spoons so they were able to create their own lemonade!
Lemon Update: (February 14th, 2024)
So far everyday leading up to today the kids come into the daycare asking about the lemon and if it has fully turned green yet, it’s so cool to see them barge through the doors and ask, where is the lemon!
Day 8:
On March 1st we decided to make lemon loaf with the kids! The children seem to have really enjoyed this activity, they all gave lots of good examples of what the batter looked like as I was mixing it. So I measured out all the ingredients into bowls so the children were able to pour them in easier, then we mixed it all up and put it in the oven. The kids will be able to try their loaf on Monday to see how it tastes!
