Fruit bingo
Learning outcomes:
- Students name fruits.
- Students make statements of preference.
Purpose of learning experience
- Students build a vocabulary for stating preferences and degrees of preference.
- Students’ language development is supported by listening, turn-taking and asking questions.
- Students understand that personal statements for game play can start with ‘I want …’ or ‘I need …’
- Students can use adjectives and descriptive language to describe fruits.
Printable: Fruit Bingo
Making connections
Developing the skills of waiting for their turn and listening to others is important for students to be able to belong in a group setting. Being able to tell other people what they like and don’t like to eat is important for students to be able to take care of themselves and respond to others. Linking fruit nouns to preferences supports students’ agency during snack times and helps them learn to use sentences to meet their own needs. Linking the fruit nouns to adjectives expands students’ vocabulary and helps them to sort objects. It is a key skill for storytelling.
Early Years Learning framework
Learning outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.
Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work
Lesson activity
‘Fruit matching’
Plan/implement
Print the Fruit bingo sets and cut out the cards. Each set contains two ‘chopping boards’ (or game boards) and 12 cards.
Give each child a chopping board. Children work together to match the fruit cards to the images on their chopping boards.
Ask children to name a fruit as they match it, e.g. ‘mango’.
Ask children to state their preference by asking, e.g. ‘Do you like mangos?’
Model full sentences and encourage children to use full sentences to state their preference, e.g. ‘I don’t like mangos.’
Observations / assessment opportunities
What word does the child use when they select a fruit card?
Does the child use Standard Australian English sentence structure: ‘I like <fruit>., ‘I don’t like <fruit>’?
Resources needed
Printable Fruit bingo sets (one set for every two children)
Language focus
apple, banana, pear, papaya, grapes, strawberry, orange, mango, pineapple, chilli, watermelonI like <fruit>.
I don’t like <fruit>.
Community Languages
Display photos of any fruit trees in your community. Write the name of the fruit in the community language/s under each photo.
Foundation Curriculum alignment
English: AC9EFLA02
explore different ways of using language to express preferences, likes and dislikes
Lesson activity
‘Fruit bingo’
Plan/implement
Print the Fruit bingo sets and cut out the cards. Each set contains two ‘chopping boards’ and 12 cards.
Students sit in a circle. Place all the cards facedown in the middle.
Give each student a chopping board.
Students take turns to turn a card face up. Ask them to name the fruit and make a statement of preference, e.g. ‘Strawberry. I really like strawberries.’
If the student has the matching fruit on their chopping board, they take the card and place it on their chopping board. If they do not have the fruit, they turn the card face down again.
You can continue to play until the first student has filled their chopping board, or until all the chopping boards are full.
Observations / assessment opportunities
Does the student use a degree of preference?"
Does the student use tone of voice to express the degree of preference?
Resources needed
Printable Fruit bingo sets (one set for every two children)
Language focus
apple, banana, pear, papaya, grapes, strawberry, orange, mango, pineapple, chilli, watermelon
I don’t like <fruit>.
I’m not keen on <fruit>.
I like <fruit>.
I really like <fruit>.
I love <fruit>!
Community Languages
Ask students to say the community language word for the fruit.
Learn how to ask, ‘What do you like?’ in the community language and practise it with the students.
Year 1 Curriculum alignment
English: AC9E1LA09
recognise the vocabulary of learning area topics
Lesson activity
‘Fruit description bingo’
Plan/implement
Students sit in a circle. Give each student a ‘cutting board’ and six stones or counters. Set the stack of cards next to yourself.
Select a card and look at it without showing students.
Describe the fruit on the card, using topic-specific vocabulary, without using its name, e.g. ‘This fruit is green outside and red inside.’ or ‘This fruit grows in bunches on a vine.’
Students look for the fruit on their board, and place a stone or counter on their board if they have that fruit. Some students may need more clues, or you may need to state the name of the fruit.
Continue to select cards and describe the fruits on them. The first student who covers all the spaces on their board calls out ‘Bingo!’
After the game, give each student one of the fruit cards from the stack. Ask each student in turn to use a sentence to describe the fruit on their card.
Observations / assessment opportunities
Can the student use topic-specific language such as colour or texture adjectives?
Resources needed
Printable Fruit bingo 'cutting boards' (one board for each student)
Printable Fruit bingo cards (one set of cards, cut out)
Stones or counters (six for each student)
Language focus
apple, banana, pear, papaya, grapes, strawberry, orange, mango, pineapple, chilli, watermelon
Vocabulary to describe fruits, e.g. red, yellow, big, small, round, long, soft, on the inside, on the outside, on a vine, on a tree
Community languages
Encourage students to use their home language to say something about the fruit on their card.
Year 2 Curriculum alignment
English: AC9E2LA09
experiment with and begin to make conscious choices of vocabulary to suit the topic
Lesson activity
‘Guess who’
Plan/implement
Print the Fruit bingo sets and cut out the cards.
Students play in pairs, sitting opposite each other. Give each pair one Fruit bingo set. Each student places a board in front of them, with the fruit cards facedown in the middle.
Each student takes one fruit card and looks at it without showing their partner. The student checks their partner’s board to see if the fruit appears there. If it doesn’t, they put the card at the bottom of the pile and take a new card, until they have one that appears on their partner’s board.
Students take turn to ask their partner a question about the fruit on their card, e.g. ‘Is your fruit big?’ If the answer is no, the questioner places stones or counters to cover up all the big fruits on their board, and if the answer is yes, they cover up all the small fruits.
When a student thinks they know the answer, they can use their turn to instead ask, e.g. ‘Is your fruit a watermelon?’
Observations / assessment opportunities
Can the student ask questions including an adjective and a noun?
Can the student respond to questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer?
Resources needed
Printable Fruit bingo sets (one set for every two students)
Stones or counters
Language focus
apple, banana, pear, papaya, grapes, strawberry, orange, mango, pineapple, chilli, watermelon
Vocabulary to describe fruits, e.g. red, yellow, big, small, round, long, soft, on the inside, on the outside, on a vine, on a tree
Is your fruit <adjective>?
Community Languages
Ask students if they know anyone who grows their own food, and if so, what they grow.
Take photos of any plants growing in your area that are used for food.
Consider visiting someone who grows food and learning the community words for plants, fruits or vegetables.
Year 3 Curriculum alignment
English: AC9E3LA03
describe how texts across the curriculum use different language features and structures relevant to their purpose
Lesson activity
‘Fruit salad book’
Plan/implement
Read What fruit do you like? Discuss the ways the characters talk about the fruit in the book.
Give each student three fruit cards.
Students glue their fruit cards to their paper and write a sentence under each one about how they or someone else feels about that fruit. E.g. ‘I like oranges.’, ‘I like oranges because they are juicy.’, ‘I love oranges, they are my favourite fruit.’, ‘My mum does not like oranges because they are so sticky.’
Staple all the pages together to make a ‘fruit salad’ book. Read the book together.
Observations / assessment opportunities
Does the student use Standard Australian English sentence structure to make statements about their fruits?
Are the student’s sentences personal responses to the fruits?
Resources needed
Printable Fruit bingo cards (three cards for each student)
What fruit to you like? storybook
Paper and pencils
Glue
Language focus
apples, bananas, pears, papayas, grapes, strawberries, oranges, mangos, pineapples, chillis, watermelons
My favourite fruit is <fruit>.
I like <fruit>.
I don’t like <fruit>.
I love <fruit> because they are <adjective>.
Community Languages
Print out a Fruit bingo chopping board and label each of the fruits on it with an adjective, using community language words.