Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise: The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home
Diane Flynn Keith: Carschooling
Carol Topp: Homeschool Co-ops: How to Start Them, Run Them and Not Burn Out
~Fall Pumpkin Harvest~
Oct. 21, 2007
Fall Science Fun ~ Apple Taste Testing
Posted in Science and other Hands On activities
Since it is the season of the apple and there are so many varieties available I thought it would be fun to taste test a bunch of them to see which ones we liked the best and at the same time we would use our senses and some mathematic skills : )

We decided on these 8. I know an apple pear isn't exactly an apple but we really wanted to try one and hey it does have apple in it's name *grin* I think the lady at the grocery store thought I was some sort of weirdo when I came to the till with all the apples in individual paper bags with each bag labeled on the outside. She kept looking at me like I must be crazy to make her open each bag and look inside and why couldn't I have just used plastic! I wonder if she has ever tried to right on plastic LOL.

I got a neat little apple graph here that we used to record our data on. We decided that we would evaluate each apple on 5 categories:
Color (red, yellow, green)
Smell (fruity, perfumey)
Texture (soft, hard, spongy, smooshy)
Taste (sweet, tart, perfumey)
Rate of 1 (yucky) to 5 (love it)
Once we had our graphs all set up we let our master peeler Opa get to work.

Opa got right into the smelling of the apples. He thought the peelings smelled better than just smelling the apple pieces : ) So we all, sniffed, scrutinized, chewed, slurped, swished and swallowed our samples until they were all gone. You can just imagine how difficult that must have been *grin*

Here's all that was left our yummy apples :)

Here is the results of K's taste testing. The Ambrosia and Red Delicious were K's favorites. It was interesting to hear what he thought of each apple and if you noticed he thought the apple pear was stinky. LOL.
At the end we averaged the individual 1-5 apple scores that we had given to see which ones came out as the winners. It was interesting to see how the individual rates skewed the final outcome. I thought that the McIntosh would get a much higher score since 3 of us really liked it giving it a 4-5 rating while K gave it a rating of 1 which knocked the average waaay down. We're going to take our answers now and graph the individual and average rates to see how it looks in color *grin*
The Ambrosia was our taste test winner, if you decide to do it to let me know which one ended up being your families favorite : )
Blessings,
BChsMamaof3
Comments
Oct. 22, 2007 - Awesome!
Posted by solodeogloria
Educational and FUN!!
xox
Laurie
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Oct. 22, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by ApplesofGold
Wow-what a tasty science experiment! I really like this idea-I think we might do this. Thanks for the apple graph link.
I'm glad you liked the bread recipe. Sometimes I just sprinkle garlic powder on the top, too.
Holly
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Oct. 22, 2007 - kudos
Posted by jenn4him
That is a fantastic project!
Jenn
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Oct. 22, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by foxvalleyfamily
My kids would LOVE something like this! We love apples here, too and red delicious are our favorites!
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Oct. 22, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by lahbluebonnet
While visiting my dh's family in upstate New York years ago, we visited a family who had an apple orchard. He proceeded to have us sample every variety of apple on the property. I'm not a huge fan of apples, and they all tasted the same to me...apple flavor! However, down here in Texas, the kids and I found our favorite...Pink Lady! I must say, the names of some of your apples do sound ap-peal-ing though! =)
Blessings,
Laurie
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Oct. 22, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by socalval
We study senses next week - I might use your great example with apples for our own study!!! Great Fall activity!!!
Thanks for sharing.
Valerie
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~About Me~
Hello from Canada! I am a homeschooling mom to 3 very rambunctious children ages 10, 6 & 3 years old while holding down the fort as tug boat captain 'Dad' sails the seven seas *grin*. We're located on 40 acres in a tiny rural community in beautiful British Columbia and this is my quirky journal about our homeschool journey, running my home based business 'RosyUndPosy' making 'Eco Friendly Bags 4 Green Living', and everyday life home on the farm. Hope you enjoy your visit :)

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