Increasing Independence in Children: Making our own Orange Juice

Friday 10th August 2018,

Practical life activities give the child an understanding of their environment and how it works……….This work builds the child’s self-esteem, making them feel of value. In addition, practical life activities also develop manual dexterity.

Today we attempted to make our own orange juice, manually with our juicer and strainer. Yesterday our children tested their fine motor skills by making lemonade and we have decided to make a comparison between how lemons and oranges taste. The benefit of involving children in such activities is that they gain primarily control and strength of hand, which will be needed later in learning to write. All the practical life exercises contribute in some degree to hand strength and fine motor coordination. Juicing, in particular, develops strength. There are other great activities to develop hand strength, such as playing with play dough and scrunching paper, but juice squeezing adds the challenge of following an organised activity, expanding our children's awareness and concentration.

We wanted to observe:

+ Do the children centre the orange over the point? 

+ Do the children rotate the orange with pressure? 

+ Do the children exercise enough strength to squeeze out all the juice?

It was quite a challenge to make the orange half steady while pushing it down onto the juicer however after a few practice runs, the children improved their coordination and focus and understood the sequence of steps from slicing the orange, squeezing the orange and then pouring it into the glass. We explained that many foods we eat come from plants and that we eat many roots, leaves and seeds from the earth. "The orange has seeds." Said Michael. "The orange falls down from the tree." Commented Sophie. 

As they drink their juice, we asked the children to describe what oranges smell and taste like. "Fresh" Said Ava "Like sunshine" Remarked Vivi. We asked them what they noticed when they strained their juice "The meat." Said Finnley describing the pulp that was left over in the strainer. 

To extend on this experience, we may use a garlic crusher to work on our fine motor strength or create our own pasta so that we could begin exploring the process of following a recipe.