Fruit Fun: Book Recommendations and Activities

Children look to categorize things. And even though Koko was already orally categorizing fruit vs. vegetable, A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds gives a more thorough introduction to the different types of fruits for preschoolers and presents everything in such an easy and fun way. I would have never thought of a fruit being a suitcase for seeds!

This book would go great with this whole and half fruit activity which you could later classify further to the categories mentioned in the book such as fruit with many seeds, fruit with pits, fruit with seeds in the outside, and fruit with seeds in the inside. Another natural extension would be reading How Do Apples Grow? and then going through this life cycle of a pumpkin and apple.

When I taught the lower grades, we once did an activity of taking a bunch of fruit and cutting them to show the seeds. It was fascinating to the children and easy to implement. Afterward, you could do fruit stamp work with paint, make a fruit salad, and/or germinate some of the seeds. Just make sure you don't attempt to plant a coffee bean. By the way, a tomato, though eaten as a vegetable, is considered a berry! Same with a banana that doesn't even grow from a tree but is a large herb plant! (first heard about this here) In fact the whole business of what defines a fruit from a vegetable is fascinating. I always thought a fruit was defined as something that had seeds. But I forgot that there are seedless fruits and that some fruits like pineapple can grow fruit without fertilization. So, I guess a better definition of fruit would be something that comes from a flower when the flower dies, usually after fertilization. And that a fruit usually have seeds. I would be interested in how other people define fruit.

On a similar vein, a non-fruit, but still equally mesmerizing non-fiction book for children is A Log's Life that was recommended by Z Recommends. The artwork looks so real but the artist did not use any photography or found art. Instead, she made sculptures and painted over it to make it look so realistic. And finally, if you have a preschooler/kindergartner, Shannon's September Biology Resource page is jam-packed with great ideas and book recommendations that will please your budding scientist including many books from the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out series that we've been enjoying. Check out your local thrift store! I found two books from this series for 20 cents each!