Apples, apples, apples!

Today we have been exploring lots of apples! First we talked about the apple in the story Snow White and what happens when Snow White eats it. Then we talked about what we know about apples and if we like them. After that we looked at some different types of apple and talked about their colours, what they looked like, what they felt like and what they smelt like.

The apples all had labels on telling us what they were called, and some also had a British flag on so we know they are grown in the UK. We had a pink lady, a cox, a  royal gala, a granny smith and a jazz. We also had a bramley apple, but we couldn't eat that this morning - why do you think that is?

We talked about the different parts of the apple, like the stalk and the seeds. Matthew said "we need to get the seeds out so we don't eat them" and Maddie said the seeds "are for growing, if you plant them an apple tree will grow. You have to water it."

We cut the pink lady apple first with a knife and looked at what it's like inside. We thought it might be pink, but it wasn't!

Then we cut some of the apples with a special machine with a handle that you had to turn. It took the core out of the apple, took the peel off and cut the apple into a funny shape like a spring!

We used another tool on the other apples - it took the core out and cut the apple into segments!

Then we tasted all the apples! As well as the five fresh eating apples we also had some dried apple to taste. Although it still tasted like apple the texture was very different - instead of being "crunchy" it was "chewy." Some of us liked it, but most people preferred the fresh apples.

"I like the pink lady because it's nice and juicy." (Hope)

"Royal gala is my favourite, it's sweet and juicy." (Lucy)

"Granny smith is really sweet. I like all of them." (Trystan)

"The cox is nice, it's crunchy and juicy." (Lexi)

"I like the jazz, it's nice and sweet." (Grace)

"I love that one [dried apple] it's yummy." (Emily)

We also did some apple printing this morning with some apples and made lovely colourful pictures!

This afternoon we used our bramley apples - can you guess why we couldn't have them this morning? It's because they are cooking apples, not eating apples, so we had to cook them first! We talked about how we could cook them and how we'd know when they were done. We thought they might change colour, and agreed that when the apples were soft they would be ready. When they were cooked we let them cool and ate them with a bit of sugar - they were delicious!