What has this famous former X Factor judge got to do with our ELPs Social Studies lesson this week?
Good question!
Perhaps this photograph might provide a better clue…
It is a fruit from Israel and it was our “special guest” this week in our lesson’s about world foods and the food crisis. At first the pupils thought – quite understandably – that we were being decidedly unadventurous and we had tomatoes on display. However, closer inspection using all of our senses had us concluding :-
- these fruits had little ridges and tomatoes do not
- these fruits had very different leaves to that of the tomato
- these fruits were heavier (more dense) than a tomato
- these fruits did not smell like a tomato – and they had a familiar scent
- these fruits had a skin like a tomato (only a little more orange)
- these fruits were the same size as a tomato
- these fruits had a stem like a tomato
We most definitely concluded that we did not have tomatoes on the table!
As usual, we felt it necessary to look a little deeper – and our traditional fruit dissection was undertaken with the sharp knife by our teacher. Look at the photograph at the top of this page. Do you see the eight distinct lines across the middle of the fruit? We had not predicted those! We had made predictions as to what we might find inside the fruit and they predominantly included
- that the fruit would have a stone like a peach
- that the fruit would have seeds like an apple
- that the fruit would have seeds like a tomato
None of our predictions were correct this week – this fruit was like no other we had investigated before.
We then undertook our final investigation… using our taste buds!
The fruit really reminded us of another everyday fruit. However, we could not make up our minds which fruit that might be. So we had to have (in the interests of research, you understand) another slice of the fruit. This proved to be a shrewd move when one of our company proclaimed that it tasted rather like a pear.
Immediately we all agreed – the smell and taste we found so familiar was very much akin to that of a pear!
As is traditional, we had a vote on whether we liked this new fruit or not. For the third week running we had everybody give it the “thumbs up”. We all enjoyed this particular portion of 5 a day. However, we were no further forward in finding out what it might be called. It wasn’t a pear or a tomato, after all.
We have the tradition of being able to “phone a friend” in class when we are unsure of ourselves. Often a classmate can be a big help, sometimes we might want to phone an “expert”. This week the pupils decided that the call to the “expert” was needed – and they dialled the magic number to ask for a clue or two.
Here are the clues…
- the fruit comes from Israel
- the fruit name begins with the letter S
- the fruit name begins with the sound “Sh”
- the fruit name is the same as the name of a girl
- the fruit name is an X Factor judge
Have you worked out yet what it is? The children did.
The Sharon Fruit grows in Israel, like the ones we tasted, but also grows in places like China, Japan and other places in the Far East. It is not native to America or Europe but has been introduced there and grows well in places such as Italy and California.
It may not be capable of listening to the warbling of the next X Factor winner…but we bet it tastes better than a Simon fruit. If there is such a thing.
😉
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