How do you explain to a 4-year old that this is not how you get orange juice?
How do you explain to a 4-year old that orange juice is not as simple as sticking a straw inside an orange and drinking?
S asked me for an orange, no problem I can peel an orange for you so you can eat it. Unfortunately, after I peeled the orange, S got upset because he wanted to drink juice out of the orange and not eat it. He was so convinced because there was already a whole in the center of the orange. Okay I’ll play along and give you a straw (1). S was only too happy to stick it in the orange. After trying to drink some orange juice he was a little embarrassed because he didn’t get anything (2). I kept telling him you can’t get juice by just sticking a straw in the orange. S then proceeded to tell me that you have to hit the orange to create juice (3). He is getting close, but not close enough yet. When he tried sticking the straw in again he got no juice (4). Now he lets me know you have to stick the straw completely through the orange to get juice. Then you put it over a bowl in case it makes a mess and hit it some more (5). Now that he finished he was sure he could get juice by putting the straw back in the orange (6). Nope didn’t happen. S said maybe if we take it apart we will be able to get juice (7). He somehow thought if you spear the orange sections it would create juice (8). When I asked him if he had juice yet, he said just a little bit. Okay so at this point I thought he may be ready to listen to what I have to say. So I asked him if I could help him make juice. Now he was only to happy to listen to what I have to say. I told him to put the orange sections in the bowl and we will mash them like we do potatoes. All of a sudden a light bulb must have turned on for S because he finally got it. He did not want me to do the mashing so he proceeded to mash the orange himself (9). He had a hard time tipping the bowl and keeping the orange chunks away so that he could drink the little bit of juice he made. Once he drank every last drop of juice we could get out of the orange he was a smiles (10). I think maybe we got a teaspoon if we were lucky. S didn’t care and was only too happy to tell B he made his own orange juice when we called him at work to say good night.
I guess some things are easier to show then explain!
