MLK Friendship Salad

Martin Luther King's birthday falls on Monday, January 21st this year.  What better way to celebrate than to make a "friendship" salad!  Ahead of time, send a note home with your kids asking them to bring in their favorite fruit.  Have children cut and combine all their fruit into a big bowl and enjoy the healthy snack they worked together to make.  If you will be making this salad at home with your child/ren to celebrate MLK's birthday and accomplishments, use the fruit as a metaphor to teach MLK's dream.  Explain that fruit are like people, there are many different types and they all look and taste different but in the end they are all the same; they are all fruit.  MLK wanted all people to get along and have equal rights. Teach integration by having your child combine all the different kinds of fruit (people) into the same bowl.  You may further explain racial segregation, if you wish, in simple terms by saying that not all children were allowed to attend the same schools or drink from the same water fountains just because of the color of their skin.

 Materials:  Various fruits, large bowl, knives (plastic or butter knives and paring knife), cutting board, apple corer, paper plates and forks.

 Make sure to wash all fruit before you begin.  If you have a sink that is readily available to your child/ren have them participate in the washing.  This would be a good time to talk about the importance of hand washing and kitchen safety.

 Start cutting fruit.  Let children participate with as much preparation as possible while still being safe.  If you position the apple corer, they can try to push down on the apple corer.  Just make sure to supervise all sharp objects at all times.  When finished with a sharp object, I would always put it out of reach.

 Cutting a banana is one of the easiest to do for youngsters.  Children as young as two years old can do this on their own. Just make sure to give them a tool that is not very sharp such as a plastic knife or a butter knife.

 Cutting the stems off of a strawberry is also fairly easy and can be done by your child/ren.

 Lastly, peeling tangerines (cuties) is something they can do on their own, considering you start it off for them.

Some of the other fruits in our salad are a bit more difficult to cut, so I did them on my own.  I cut the orange and the pear.  It is okay if you cut some of the fruit...the children will be very busy cutting up the rest of the fruit on their own.  Mix up your salad and enjoy!  Look at all those cool multi-colored fruit....everyone is so unique!