Sensory Snack Sort

Activity Overview

In this activity, students will engage in hands on research to learn more about their sense of taste. While reading the text, students will learn about subject-specific vocabulary, which they will use to create their own categories as they explore all of the different flavors of food. Students will exercise creativity as they compare and sort food based on characteristics that they analyze and identify. Further, students will develop a stronger understanding of their relationship with their surroundings as they communicate throughout this sweet, salty, or spicy sensory experience!

** Important: Please be aware of student allergies while tasting food! **

What You Need

• The Sense of Taste on Epic

• Collection of foods from your kitchen or pantry

• Paper and markers to create “mats” or labels for categories

Steps

1. Use the Epic app to read The Sense of Taste.

2. Collect 10 foods. Taste each food and talk about how it tastes. Use the guiding questions to gain specific information describing each food’s flavor and texture.

3. Create categories to sort the foods, such as “salty,” “sweet,” “spicy,” “crunchy,” and “chewy.” After asking the guiding questions, let the student choose where they think each food should be sorted.

4. After sorting 10 items, ask students to find food items that they are familiar with and choose a category for the new food.

Guiding Questions

• How does the food smell?

• What does it feel like to eat the food – crunchy, chewy, soft, creamy, smooth?

• How does it taste – salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami?

• If the student has difficulty identifying the taste, offer an example: “Is this food salty like chips, or sweet like fruit?”

• What patterns do you notice about the foods that you have sorted into each category?

• How are the foods in this category similar? How are they different from each other?

• How did you choose the categories?

Extensions

• Select one category and try to think of a way to combine some of the foods within that one category to create a brand new delicious concoction! Some combinations may fail, but you may also stumble upon a new GEM!

• Play with members of your community and see who can come up with the tastiest new creation!