A couple of weeks ago, Burke did an ‘apple sampling’ at preschool. His class taste tested three kinds of apples and shared their observations. Ever since then, both of the kids have been asking to do an apple sampler at home. And, once I finally got my act together and bought several varieties of apples, we had such a fun afternoon taste testing!

We sampled Honeycrisp, Gala, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith apples. I also portioned out Nutella, peanut butter and Pumpkin Dip to spice things up and make it a little different from the apple sampler Burke did at school. Piper Jane and I consumed way too much Nutella and pumpkin dip for a Tuesday afternoon (Burke was methodically working his way through all of the pairings and wasn’t distracted by the more-sugar-than-usual). If you have kids that are sucked in by treats (like me and Pi!), you might serve smaller portions of the sweet stuff.

The primary teacher in me couldn’t help but make an observation chart to accompany our apple tasting activity and that little chart was definitely Burke’s favorite part.

He charted his reactions, marked his favorite combo with a thumbs up, and even tried some labeling. The chart was super easy to put together (feel free to use our apple sampler observation chart if you want to save a few minutes).

I am already trying to think of different variations on this theme. Maybe a tomato sampler in the summer using the different varieties from the garden? Or a squash sampler? Or a citrus fruit taste test? The addition of the dips was one of our favorite parts, so I’d love to incorporate that again. If you think of other variations, send ’em my way!