Summer harvests bring some delicious fresh fruits. Look out for mango, rhubarb, apricots, cherries, satsumas, sharon fruit, melons, nectarines, peaches and more!
Explore fruit as a class with these delectable activity ideas.
Set up a fresh fruit tasting panel to find out the group’s favourite fruit. Start by cutting up various fruit options into bite size pieces and putting each on a plate with a clear name label. Ask each child to use cocktail sticks or teaspoon to taste each one.
Once they have tasted each fruit, ask the children to put them in rank order – most to least favourite. You can then score the fruits, each student giving their own mark, with the highest number of points to their favourite, and creating a maths exercise to total up the class scores. Finish by taking a photo of their individual and class ranking to make a display. There are some useful resources to celebrate their favourite foods here.
Ask the children to say why they voted the way that they did. If you need some help with ways to get children talking about food, there are some more useful tips and activities here.
Choose one fruit such as apricot, cherries or peaches. Bring in the fresh fruit, plus the canned and dried version of it. Cut the fruits into bite size pieces and place on a plate with a clear label. Ask the children to compare and contrast the different versions of the fruit. They can investigate and compare the difference in:
Older children may be able to compare the fibre content, or research how they have been processed, how the processing affects the shelf life and properties of the fruit.
Children can record their findings on a simple chart. You can use a simple word bank to help support younger learners.
If your group has less experience of taste and flavour, our Tastes of Success resources may be a useful starting point!
