Discovering and Sorting Seeds in Fruits and Vegetables

Problem:

In this project young children discover, identify, and sort seeds from a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Materials:

• A wide variety of fruits and vegetables (include fruits/vegetables from the same family to help with understanding the idea of families, e.g. stone fruits, citrus fruits, squash, etc.)
• Child-safe knife, spoons, and other tools to help take apart fruits/vegetables
• Paper
• Markers or crayons

Procedure:

1. Present the fruits/vegetables to be experimented with and have the child write or draw the name/picture of each fruit/vegetable, each on a separate piece of paper.
2. Explain to the child that they will be hunting for seeds and that they should take apart the fruits/vegetables in whatever way they want in order to discover their seeds.
3. Give the child the fruits/vegetables and the tools and let them go at it.
4. When a seed(s) is discovered, have the child remove it and place it on the piece of paper labeled with the fruit/vegetable from which the seed(s) came.
5. After the child has had a good long while to find seeds, have them group similar seeds together.
6. Talk about what makes the seeds in each group similar and different. Do the fruits/vegetables in each group look, taste, or smell similar to each other?