I mentioned during our listening walk activity that I was inspired by all the wonderful Aliki books we read for the Virtual Book Club for Kids this month. This simple science investigation was another activity we enjoyed doing after reading My Five Senses (affiliate links included).

Getting Ready for the Science Investigation

I wanted to choose a food to investigate that would challenge the kids’ taste buds a bit, so I decided to explore lemon foods. Instead of selecting the foods to try on my own, I decided we’d take a field trip to the grocery store.  I did have a general idea of what we might gather,  but I challenged the kids to examine the store closely to find as many foods made with lemon as they could find.

This was fun! I genuinely did not realize how many lemon foods there are in the grocery store. I told the girls we were limiting our purchase to five items (although we ended up with six), so they spent a lot of time deliberating over which things to buy. This added another layer of learning into our activity, and I loved it! While we were there we also discussed quantities and prices, predicted the total cost, and inspected the amount of change we received. These were all subtle ways to include math, too.

I realize if you are teaching in a classroom setting this field trip might not be practical. Maybe instead you could brainstorm together what type of items you might find and then let the kids vote for the ones to include in the investigation.

Back at home I drew up a simple chart for Lovey to use as a recording sheet. Grab your own free printable recording sheet if you’ll be using some of the same foods we tried.

Making Predictions and Investigating

Lovey predicted that she would not like any of the foods, because she doesn’t like lemon. She thought they would all taste sour. Tinker loves fresh lemon, so she thought she would like them all.

Then it was time to investigate. We started off with the fresh lemon, and it got this reaction…

Next Lovey tried the lemon juice. Can you see the, “Are you kidding me mom? What are you letting me eat?” expression in her eyes here? It was hard not to giggle!

Finally we got to the cookie, and I think she was a bit relieved to find something she liked.

Recording Observations

As we went along she recorded whether she liked the food and one word to describe the food. This was another attempt on my part to integrate writing and vocabulary into our activities. If you are working with younger preschoolers, you could skip the recording sheet and discuss the vocabulary orally instead.

We loved both the field trip and the science investigation. The girls actually decided they really like those lemon cookies, so we’re also discovering new foods along the way. I’m sure this will be an investigation we repeat again in the future.

What kinds of foods should we try next?

Free Printable

If you’ll be using the same categories of foods we did, grab your own free printable recording sheet to use.

Book Pairings

You might enjoy reading these books to go along with your lemon study.

The Red Lemon by Bob Staake

Under the Lemon Moon by National Geographic Learning

A Full Week of 5 Senses Lesson Plans

Continue learning about the five senses with our printable lesson plan set. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provide different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

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Home Preschool Five Senses Theme Lesson Plans (in our shop or on TpT)

Preschool Classroom Five Senses Theme Lesson Plans (in our shop or on TpT)

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