This morning the kids were all surprised to find that the Touch and Feel was full of LEMONS! Some of them immediately guessed that our sense of the day was taste! We rolled the lemons and counted the lemons and squeezed the lemons.....and if I'm honest.....there was some tossing of the lemons too!
We made a chart today classifying different tastes. Some things are sweet because they have a lot of sugar. Most of the kids really liked everything in this line of the chart. Other things taste sour. Sour things like lemons and limes make our lips pucker in a funny face. Salty things like chips, pretzels, and french fries make us feel very thirsty.
Today' book was Delicious by Helen Cooper. This story is about a VERY picky eater who refuses to try anything new....sound familiar? Three friends, Cat, Squirrel, and Duck, have a very serious problem: there are no ripe pumpkins in the garden for their favorite soup! They'll have to make something else, but while Cat and Squirrel are willing to experiment, all Duck wants is pumpkin soup. He won't even try a taste of the fish soup or mushroom soup, and the beet soup his friends make is the last straw-- "I'm not eating that," he says. "It's pink!" Can Cat and Squirrel find a way to please their fussy friend? The kids loved this story.....but I'm quite certain none of them saw the parallel between the book and themselves!!
The science for today was a good trial immediately following a story about someone who wouldn't try new things!! We took the lemons from the Touch and Feel and cut them up. We smelled them (with our noses), looked at them (with our eyes), and touched them (with our hands). We talked about all the information that each sense gave us. We could see that the lemons were yellow and had seeds inside. They felt wet and cold. Then.....we tasted the lemons. Despite the sour faces, some of the kids actually said that they like the taste! Others.....not so much! It was easy to use our new vocabulary word "sour" to describe the lemons.....but one child even deemed the lemons "not very delicious"!
Ms. Laura handed out our next thing to taste....sugar. We used all of our senses again to help us get some more information. We could see it was white and in tiny little pieces. We could feel that it was like sand. For the record, we strongly discouraged smelling it!!And when we tasted it.....it was a big hit! Again, it was very easy to classify the sugar as sweet.
But....the real science was about what would happen if we mixed these two flavors? Each child took a turn squeezing out some juice from the lemon. Together with the children we squeezed out 32 lemon halves! We put that juice in cups.....and tasted again! I'm not sure where these lemons came from....but they were extremely SOUR! Then we added some water and some sugar.....and tasted again! Our intent was to produce some lemonade....but considering the 32 potent lemons we used.....we never quite succeeded in getting a sweet refreshing drink. The kids thought it was neat though....and it definitely taught them about sour tasting things! I'm talking eyes watering, mouth puckered tight kind of sour!!
What a fun way to end the week! Can't wait to see what next week holds....a new month and a new theme!
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