new for us friday–mango mania

As we were grocery shopping last Friday before our big Guppy Gala night, Maddy said, Hey, Mommy! Let’s try some new fruit today. How about these?

She picked up a mango. How could I resist? It was Friday, and we were supposed to be trying new things on Fridays.

So we did. We tried mangos. Sure, we’ve had them before at the mall in smoothies, at Rita’s in Italian ice, but we had never really had them before as real fruit in our house.T

• Mango Mania: I washed them, then everyone held it, squeezed it, and looked at it. Then I tried (unsuccessfully) to cut them. The kids got a kick out of me literally hacking away at the poor mango, but I did manage to get some fruit out, which we tried and loved.

While I cut it, I asked questions:

–Do you think it has a pit or seeds? (Sadly, I didn’t know, either.)

–How should we handle the skin–should we eat it like we do for apples, or should we peel it like an orange? (We decided to peel, and we were right.)

–Will the fruit be sour or sweet? (YUM! So sweet. . . )

our very unprofessionally cut mangos

Maddy, Owen, and Cora asked for more, and we talked about which fruits we had tried before that we could compare it to. We decided it was a lot like a peach or nectarine, in its texture but like an orange because it had a peel. Making these connections to fruits familiar to us is a great way of helping little ones learn–whether it’s something like trying a new food, subjects in a book, or, actually, any new concept.

Next, we did a little backward research. I Googled “how to cut a mango” and found a cool “How-To Cut a Mango” video on YouTube that we all watched in awe. I stumbled across the National Mango Board‘s site (yes, there’s one), and there we found ‘Slammin Ways to Eat a Mango’, Mango games (seriously), another ‘How-To” video, and literally anything and everything we needed to know about mangos.

It was a riot. Next time–if possible–I’ll research with the kids beforehand, but that’s not always possible. It was fun for us to have a little “mango mania” without really knowing what we were doing. And that’s what Fridays over here are all about–trying out some new things.

(Graphic to the right © 2008 National Mango Board
Photos used by permission of the National Mango Board. All rights reserved.)