Put children's sense of taste to the test with this activity. Set out food items that have varying tastes; chocolate, strawberries, bananas and lemons, for example. Allow children to taste the items while looking at them and encourage them to try to commit the tastes to their memories. After tasting the items, blindfold children and provide them with another taste of each of the items. Ask them if they can identify what each item is based only on their sense of taste.
This activity encourages children to predict what different types of food will taste like and whether or not they will like the tastes. Offer children foods that have particular tastes; sweet, sour and salty, for example. After making their predictions, allow children to sample each food and ask them if their predictions were correct or incorrect. Talk about how taste buds affect the sense of taste and explain that each person has different taste buds, making one person love a food that another person hates.
The sense of smell has a big impact on the sense of taste, as the two are connected through shared airways. Allow children to explore how the two senses are interrelated with this activity. Peel an apple and a potato and cut the foods into similar size and shaped pieces -- apples and potatoes look similar on the inside, yet have very different tastes, making them ideal foods for this activity. Ask children to taste the foods with clear noses and see if they can determine which is the apple and which is the potato. Have children squeeze their noses closed and then taste each item and ask them if they are able to identify which is which. They'll likely have difficulty telling the difference when their noses are plugged.
Spices and sweeteners are used to add flavor to different types of food. Use this activity to allow children to explore how spices and sweeteners alter the taste of different items. Cut a grapefruit into pieces and invite children to taste the fruit with nothing on it. Ask children to describe how the fruit tastes and ask them whether or not they like the taste. Provide children with sugar and instruct children to sprinkle it on the surface of another piece of grapefruit. Have them taste the sugared grapefruit and ask them to compare the taste of the plain fruit with the sweetened fruit. Lastly, have them sprinkle salt onto another piece of grapefruit and encourage them to taste it. Ask them to compare the difference between all three pieces of grapefruit and discuss how the additives altered the tastes.