Great Lesson Ideas: Fruit Haiku with Beth Sonnenberg

[01:00:12;16]
Beth: I'm Beth Son-en-berg. Here is a fun lesson I teach. Fruit in-spired haikus.

"So, right here, we have, pretty much, the largest type of citrus to the very smallest."

Kids love fruit, and it's sweet. And, everybody likes sweet.

"Today we're gonna be talking about citrus, and why do you think citrus is the kind of fruit..."

This lesson was a tasting, and we tried four different types of citrus. And, what we did was a little bit of the nutrition piece, a little bit about sensory, descriptive words, and a little bit about constructing some sort of poem, in the form of a haiku.

"So each table of two is gonna get four things that you're gonna try."

Student: "Yummy!"

Beth: While they're tasting, they are recording descriptive words.

Student: "Sweet. Bitter."

Student: "Sour."

Student: "Tangy."

Beth: So they're using their four senses - touch, and taste, and smeill and sight. And, that they use those words as opposed to 'Hate it. Love it.'

Student: "Well, it smells a lot like a flower, for some reason. I don't know why, but..."

Beth: "Give me a descriptive word of blood orange. Let's have a good one. Right here, yeah."

Student: "Sweet."

Beth: "Sweet. Shout it out!"

I think it's really important that kids have something really fun in their day.

Students: "Tangy. Fresh. Sugary."

Beth: I mean, it needs to be reigned in, but I always think of it as, like, driving a bit 'ole Cadillac. You don't kind of steer it hard, you just kind of guide it.

Student: "Sour."

Student: "Fresh."

Beth: "OK. Right here. Lexi"

Student: "It smells like perfume."

Beth: So then, I introduce the haiku. Has anybody heard of a haiku? What is the form?

"It's like this - five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Let's talk about what a syllable is. So.."

And then describe what a syllable is, so that students are able to count out syllables. And, I might use my name or I might use a type of fruit, something like that to get them thinking about 'what is a syllable?'

Student: "Ex-treme-ly so-ur."

Student: "It is very sweet."

Student: "Tan-ge-los are per-fum-y. That's seven, and then Tan-ge-los are good. That's five."

Beth: Oh yeah, it's always entertaining to see what they come up with.

Student: "I love the kumquat. It tastes very good and very sour. I love to eat kumquat."

Beth: "You're on deck."

Student: "Refreshing and strong. Tart, tangy, chewy, bitter. It's a kumquat."

Beth: "Nice."

What we want to really teach them about is making healthy choices, and so, it's important to me that they know that fruit is really good for them, tastes really good, and is an excellent option.

Student: "Eat the blood orange. It's sweet when you eat it. I love to eat them."

Student: "Kumquats are the best. it is sour, then it gets sweet. Sour, sour, sour, sour."

Student: "Extremely sour, but also sweet and tangy. I love lemonade."

Beth: The thing about this is it's really easy to do. I often do a fifteen-minute tasting; it's not the whole class period, just two different types of pear, or two different kinds of apple. Very simple. I think if you have a collendar, a cutting board, and a knife, and maybe even a few paper towels, you can really easily do this lesson, and have it be very successful.