Taste Opposites

Activity Overview

Sorting, sorting, sorting! Sorting is a building block of learning that we often discuss when thinking about other math concepts. From basic two-color patterns to engineering problems and building challenges, children are always practicing new ways to sort and categorize. Unfortunately, most sorting that we teach explicitly in the classroom deals with physical attributes like colors, shapes, and sizes. But what does a pattern look like if you need to use a sense other than sight? In this activity students will be addressing that question as they use their sense of taste to create new ways to sort. A cucumber and a zucchini, a tomato and an apple, salt and sugar, and cilantro and parsley when sorted visually would all be grouped with each other. But what happens when we ask a student to sort a tomato and apple or salt and sugar by taste? Let’s find out.

What You Need

• All About My Senses: What’s That Taste? by Adam Bellamy

• At least five pairs of ingredients that appear similar visually:

  • Salt and sugar

  • Tomato and apple

  • Cucumber and zucchini

  • Honey and mustard

  • Cinnamon and brown sugar (or cumin, chili powder)

  • Muffin and cupcake

  • Mayonnaise and sour cream

  • Guacamole and hummus (or pesto)

  • Cilantro and parsley

Steps

1. Choose at least five pairs from the above list of partner ingredients. Place the ingredients in small containers in front of the students. Ask the open-ended question, “What do you notice?” about the food.

2. Ask students to create groups or pairings using the physical attributes of the ingredients. Encourage them to use color and texture to sort. While it is helpful if each ingredient is paired up with one other, it is not necessary. Ask students to share what characteristics they used to sort each ingredient. Take a picture of how your student sorted the ingredients visually.

3. Conduct a taste test in which students will test small portions of each ingredient. Give students pairs of ingredients that appear similar in color and texture. If possible, use the sorting piles the students created and test by characteristic.

4. Help students create new ways to sort the ingredients, this time, by taste. Read All About My Senses: What’s That Taste? by Adam Bellamy and use vocabulary from that book to create your new ways to divide. If tastes in this activity are new to a student, ask them to think of things that taste similar.

5. Take a picture of how your student sorted the ingredients by taste. Compare this picture with the picture from step two.

Guiding Questions

• What do you notice about the food? How can we divide this food?

• What is similar about these ingredients? What is different?

• Do foods that look the same taste the same?

• Can you think of a way to make new groups for these foods?

• If you can’t see a food or feel it, can you use taste to sort?

Extensions

• Revisit your refrigerator or pantry and ask students to find foods that look similar but taste different. This will be different from home to home, so guidance from the grown-ups is important. Consider choosing the first ingredient and asking students to find one that looks similar.