Design and Technology: Smoothies

In Year 1 we have been completing our second DT project: Smoothies!

The key skills in our project are:

Design:

• Designing a smoothie based on fruit choices and colour mixing. 

Make:

• Chopping fruit and vegetables safely to make a smoothie.

• Juicing fruits safely to make a smoothie

Evaluate:

• Tasting and evaluating different food combinations.

• Describing appearance, smell and taste.

• Suggesting information to be included on packaging.

• Comparing their own smoothie with someone else’s.

To begin this project, in class we learnt lots about the difference between fruits and vegetables. We looked at a variety of fruits, and discovered the many different ways fruits can grow; on vines, in bushes or on trees! To be defined as a fruit, it has to have seeds! Either lots of little seeds either inside the fruit or on the outside skin, or one large seed inside making it a stone fruit.

Our first activity in our books was to separate fruits and vegetables, based on what they are and whether they grow underground, above ground or high in another plant or tree. This helped year 1 to understand the many different fruits and vegetables that we can grow.

Next we all designed our smoothies, choosing the fruits they would like to try! Year 1 wrote about why they wanted to try these fruits, what they think it will taste like when blended together and what colour they think it may turn into!

The final section was to make the smoothies, the best part! The whole class worked together in the creativity room to prep all the fruit we will be mixing together. We decided on; strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and bananas, with orange juice and yoghurt to help sweeten the smoothies and make them thicker. There was a cutting station for each fruit, and a juicing station! Year 1 were so sensible throughout our preparation activity. They sensibly watched an adult show them how to cut the fruits carefully and then shared the knives and chopping board between a pair to cut their fruit into small pieces. The children at the juicing station had an even trickier job, using their strength to push down the cut oranges onto the juicers and twist them carefully, to collect as much juice as they could!

The fun part was mixing all of the ingredients, especially the beautifully cut fruit, all together in a blender and seeing if their guesses about the different colours of the smoothies was correct! Everyone was able to taste two different smoothies out of the mixes we created. There was a strawberry and banana smoothie, a blueberry and raspberry smoothie, and a blueberry and banana smoothie.

Well done Year 1, you were all so sensible throughout this process, and made such tasty smoothies too!