House Creek students learn the art of conversation with fruit salad

By ASHLEY LEAGUE
Special to Leader-Press

Being bundled up inside the house with your family due to unseasonably cold weather in Texas was a perfect opportunity for House Creek Elementary students to use skills they learned recently  through their “friendship fruit salad” assignment. 
House Creek staff stress the importance of family conversations and instill these values in their students through their teaching. First grade students each brought a piece, or pieces, or fruit to class. 
During their math lessons, the scholars tallied up how many pieces of fruit were brought in by drawing the fruit in boxes and creating a picture graph. They then compared their findings of the different types of fruits with their friends and made sure their results were accurate.  
Students including Katielynn Velesky were then asked to create a math problem, using complete sentences, for their classmates to solve. 
“It was good, because everything was fun,” the first grader said.
Students were given white boards to solve the problems and enjoyed drawing up more problems to solve. 
First grader Aliza Cepeda said it was a fun way to learn because it was hands-on and she got to literally enjoy the fruits of her labor at the end of the assignment.
“It was a really good idea because we got to eat the fruit,” Cepeda said. 
After the lesson, student Camryn Powell and her classmates mixed their fruit together to create a friendship fruit salad. 
After all their hard work, they got the chance to refuel their brains by 
eating the fruit salad together as a class and talking about what they learned and what they were looking forward to in the new semester.
“The best part is when we ate the fruit all together as a whole class,” Powell said. 
It wasn’t just about math or eating fruit, but about gathering together to solve problems with one another, making memories as friends and enjoying each other’s company after a long day of hard work.