Last fall, our family went apple picking at the Swanton Pacific Ranch about an hour’s drive from our home. They have a grove of organic, u-pick apples with a ton of different varieties that mature between August and October. After enjoying a morning of apple picking, we came home to do some apple taste testing.
My goals were for my kids to understand that different apples have different tastes, to compare the different tastes, and to decide which flavor of apple they liked best. I also wanted them to record their experience with each apple in a scientific manner.
Note: For more kid-friendly apple activities, see my Apple Unit Study page.
Apple picking was a blast! My husband and I taught the kids to carefully inspect each apple before picking it to ensure it was (1) ripe, (2) not bruised, and (3) not infested with any bugs. After a bit of practice, the kids got really good at selecting ripe apples from the trees. In fact, they got so good that we ended up picking over 24 pounds of apples to take home!
The farm had a number of apple varieties in seasons, and we wanted to try them all. For this apple taste testing activity, I then supplemented our self-picked apples with one or two additional varieties from the grocery store to have six varieties of apple in all.
I labeled each variety of apple and then sliced them up for our taste testing experiment.
We all took turns tasting different varieties of apple. My husband and I then helped the kids to record their impression of each apple on this Exploring Apples! worksheet that I put together. (See below to download a copy for personal or classroom use.)
In the end, we all liked the Gala, Jonagold, and Red Gravenstein apples best. We all had pretty full stomachs by the end too. 🙂
Below is a sneak peak at the two pages included in the Exploring Apples! download. As you can see there are two versions of the worksheet. My kids used the first version, but older kids may prefer the second version.
Want a copy of my Exploring Apples worksheet?
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More apple resources
More apple posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Apple Unit Study
- Apple Printables Pack
- Apple Do-a-Dot Printables
- Apple rotting experiment
- Dissecting an apple
- Apple sensory bin
- Apple Montessori activities
For more kid-friendly apple activities, see my Apple Unit Study page and my Apples Pinterest board.
Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Apples unit ideas on Pinterest.
Love, love! The printable is wonderful, and this is such a great extension for a trip to an apple orchard! I hope we get a chance to do this activity.
Merci, d’être si créatif et de partager vos idées!
De rien!
Thank you! I’m looking forward to seeing what apples are available 🙂
Thank you. Working on our Apple theme unit this week. Helpful ideas.