Taste the fruit and find the seed

Activity

Find common or exotic fruits in your local shops. Have a taste test and see if you can find the seeds.

  • Estimated time: 15 minutes
  • Location: Outdoors & Indoors
  • School term: All year round
  • Level of experience: No experience needed
  • Subject(s): English

Learning objectives

  • Learn to recognise different fruits
  • Taste and describe the fruit
  • Learn that fruit contains the seeds of a plant

Preparation

Ask pupils to bring in or purchase the fruit beforehand, including some common fruits such as oranges, pears and melons along with exotic ones such as pomegranates and lychees, dried fruit such as dates and figs and tinned fruit for a contrast.

Equipment

  • A selection of fruits (see above)
  • Cutting boards
  • Knives and tin opener (to be used under supervision according to age)
  • Plates
  • A book or internet resource on the names of tropical fruits would be useful

Step by step

  1. Show your group the whole fruit or in their packets or tins.
  2. Ask if they can recognise any of the fruit. What are they called? Have they ever eaten them before?
  3. Use the knife or tin opener to open the tins or cut up the fruit into bite sized pieces. Keep a single fruit to a plate.
  4. See if the group can see the seeds. Put them to one side of each plate rather than eating them. 
  5. Ask them to try the fruit. Does it taste like anything they have eaten before? If they had to describe the taste to someone who hadn’t tried it how would they do so? For example the tropical sapodilla or chikoo fruit (in the photo) taste like brown sugar.

Hints & tips

  • Check if any of the pupils in the class are allergic to any fruit.
  • Try looking in the international section of your supermarket or greengrocers.
  • Use this activity as part of Supermarket Sweep and Sensory Sensations class growing topics.