A Fruit Salad Bowl of Lessons

"One final thing. I'll just cut up the fruits for the salad and then I'll sit down and spend time with the kids." This was what I was thinking after spending the whole morning doing household chores. My poor kids were entertaining themselves in front of the T.V. waiting for Mommy. And then an idea struck me -- why not let them come sit with me while I cut up the fruits. We'll make things up as we go along.

So the kids happily gathered round Mommy and the lessons began:

1. How many mangoes are there? How many apples are there? How many altogether?
2. Ok, Mommy is taking one apple away to cut. How many left?
   Now I'm taking another one. 4 apples take away 1 is ...?
3. See, you put the cut apples in salt water so the apples don't turn brown. If you leave the cut apples exposed to air, they turn brown.
4. What is the name of this fruit? Winter Melon. And what about that one? Yes, strawberries.
5. How many boxes of strawberries? What do they taste like? Sweet, sour or salty? What color are they?
6. Look at the mangoes. What color are they on the outside? What color are they on the inside?
7. Ok, I will let you help me cut. But must be careful with the knife ok. Cut it into cubes like this. This is called what? CUBES. Well done.
8. What about this fruit? What is this? KIWI. Do you know where kiwis come from? They can't grow in Malaysia. They come all the way from New Zealand. What do they taste like?
9. All done now. Do you remember what fruits we used? How many fruits altogether?
10. Which one did we cut first? Second? Third? etc....

It was really a delightful time. The kids enjoyed the "bonding" time and of course we got to treat ourselves to yummy nutritious fruits. Not forgetting Mommy managed to squeeze in some math, science and geography lessons. It made me think how many times I may have missed out on opportunities like this. More often than not we get bogged down with our work, that we become shortsighted to the real life lessons awaiting our children if only we include them in the work.