An Apple a Day...: A Lesson Worth Repeating!

Lesson planning can be a tough thing. Sometimes you work so hard at trying to figure out the perfect way to explain a concept to students. As a teacher, you want to make it 1.) easy to understand and 2.) exciting, interesting, and/or fun in someway. I will usually have these random moments where a bunch of ideas will all of a sudden flood my brain and I have to work through the logistics to make them into legitimate lessons!

I had one of these moments the other week when planning for a science lesson. I was planning for science and the first unit of science is all about plants and their various parts. I love doing hands on projects to get kids involved and excited about what they're learning. I had an idea that would really get my kids involved in exploring the fruit and seeds of a plant--dissecting fruit!

After talking with our upper school science teacher, I worked it out to have my students come down to her room to use her supplies. She also has tile floor! A must when having kids chop up fruit.

The kids were outfitted in lab coats, given some plastic knives, and, after talking about various rules, were given fruit and allowed to explore their fruit and seeds! I brought kiwi, nectarines, and a pumpkin. We cut each piece of fruit open and explored the location and size of the seed. We also talked about if we could eat the seed or not.

It was such a fun activity and the kids LOVED it! The pumpkin was most definitely the favorite. Don't worry...I cut that one up myself! It was so much fun to watch their excitement and see them explore. It was also rewarding to see a lesson that I really liked when I plan work out. As a teacher, you have lessons that can end up flopping. Fortunately this was not one of them! This one will definitely be repeated.