'Taste' sensory experience for toddlers: what food to use?

[RoseRed123]

Hi, This is my first post

I work in the Toddler room at my centre and I want to incorporate experiences covering all senses...but I don't really know what to do with taste...

I mean I know I'll have to use food. And I was thinking maybe to cut up lemon for sour and an orange for sweet...but what else could I use.

What could be salty?
Should I incorporate hot (warm) and cold too? Is that taste or touch?
Would an orange work for sweet?
Does sweet, sour, salty, hot and cold cover everything?

Is there anything I should be concerned about with giving the children food? When we do cooking experiences with the children we just let the parents know with a note about what the exact ingredients are and they let us know if there is an issue that we don't already know about. So I guess this would fall under the same thing.

I don't really want to go into anything that involves cooking if I can help it. I find it a bit stressful...especially when I have a pretty young room at the moment all newish 2's. I'd rather save anything with too much 'cooking' for the end of the year when most of them are nearer to 3.

Any thoughts or ideas would be great

[Lorina]

Taste is such a fun experience to do with children just because of their priceless reactions when tasting certain foods! It's so funny seeing a child with a scrunched up face as they lick a lemon...

There are 5 basic tastes which are salt, sour, sweet, bitter, and savoury. So maybe you could do a food item for the children to taste from each of these categories. Food you could possibly use for each category include:

salt - salt chips, salt mixed with water, pretzels
sour - lemon juice, grapes, pineapple
sweet - chocolate, candy, (all the good stuff)
bitter - coffee, cumin powder, lettuce, cabbage
savoury- salt and vinegar chips, crackers, popcorn

Since they are young they probably wont be familiar with the terms used but you can incorporate these words into the topic in order for them to gain an understanding.... When they have a taste of each flavour you can get a simple response from them. Ask questions like "what does it taste like", "did it taste sweet", "have you had that taste before" etc. Write their responses down as part of your documentation. Also make a display piece with this experience. Take photos of each child trying different flavours...

Yeah I'd also send a note home to parents explaining the taste experience and what tastes you will be using just to be on the safe side.

Hope this gives you some ideas and enjoy the experience!

,
L.A

[Smiley]

How bout making edible activities 4 taste.

Edible Pretend Snow – Loaf of white bread & blend until it looks like snow (take crusts off first) Cereal Play – add in clear trough with lots of clean toys for play. Yogurt – give small plate each child with yoghurt 2 make pictures & play. Noodles – food colouring for different colour and child can make designs.

Make this into individual play give each child plate with one taste activity they can play at table with. No germs can be swapped this way.

[catchmeifucan]

You can make it very simple and get some different fruits for the taste test. Most fruits have different tastes such as sour, sweet and salty. For instance grapes, strawberries, oranges, plums, peaches, mangos and more. When childen taste you can ask “yummy” or “yucky” to see which ones they liked.

[RoseRed123]

Thanks for the ideas everyone

[amelia08]

Wow! Thanks for this very useful information. I can share this new found ideas to my best friend.