What vegetables can you recognise?
In this lesson, the children will be learning how to recognise vegetables and will learn some interesting facts about vegetables.
Key Questions:
How can you make vegetables last longer?
What is the difference between fruits and vegetables?
Call out names of different fruits and vegetables and get the children to shout out if it is a fruit or a vegetable. You could do this while holding up examples.
Carrot... vegetable
Peas... vegetable
Apple... fruit
Potato... vegetable
Lesson Expert: Matt looks at vegetables that can be found in an allotment.
Sorting fruit & vegetables
Ask the children to bring in a fruit or vegetable from home: the more unusual the better. Alternatively, have some ready in the classroom. Ask the children to sort the fruits and vegetables into two separate groups. Discuss their ideas on how to sort the different fruits and vegetables into groups.
Examples of groups include fruits or vegetables, colours of fruits, those that grow above, those that grow underground, those that need peeling, those that can be eaten raw, those that need to be cooked and those that have a stone. Use the handout for the children to draw and write about their own groups.
Discuss the ways in which the children sorted the food into groups. Give the children the opportunity to show how they sorted the fruits and vegetables on their handouts.
Teacher Mastery: What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable? Scientifically speaking, a fruit is a seed-bearing part of a plant that has developed from a flower's ovary. All other plant parts are known as vegetables. There are different categories of vegetables, such as bud, bulb, flower, leaf, root, stem, tuber, vegetable fruit, and vegetable seed. Bud vegetables include artichokes and Brussels sprouts. Onions and garlic are bulb vegetables, while broccoli and cauliflower are flower vegetables. Leaf vegetables include spinach, cabbage and kale. Carrots and parsnips are root vegetables. Celery, rhubarb and asparagus are stem vegetables, while potatoes and yams fall under the tuber category. Vegetable seeds are things like corn and peas.