Making our own orange juice
There’s lots of delicious locally grown citrus around at the moment so we thought it was a great opportunity to roll our sleeves up and make juice with the kids!
Squeezing oranges to make orange juice may seem like a pretty straightforward activity but there are so many great skills picked up along the way. For some of our children it was the first time they’d given it a go, so they had to work out how to push down and twist on the juicer at the same time.
As well as practising control and strength of their hand (great for writing later on), the children also practised tipping and pouring which is great for hand-eye coordination (most of it went in the cups!)
We had some great conversations with the children while we were juicing, about what other fruits and vegetables could be made into juice and how it tasted different to other orange juice they had tried. We also talked about the difference between the skin and the flesh of the orange, and wondered if we could grow some orange trees in Step Ahead’s garden with some of the seeds we collected.
The other thing the children loved was the smell! If you have a few oranges on your trees at home, why not try juicing some – it was a super fun experience and very satisfying to get to drink the juice after all their hard work extracting it!