Why This Recipe:

This is a fun activity to do with students during Tishrei and introduces them to the basic steps involved in conducting a scientific experiment.

Ingredients:

• Assorted colorful apples
• Pieces of string approx. 12" long

Directions:

1. Peel and cut the apples into thin slices.
    
2. Give each student or group of students a piece of string.
    
3. Have the children select the slices that they want to dry on their string.
    
4. Pull a piece of string through apple slices and hang up the string so that the apple pieces do not touch.
    
5. Wait two weeks and eat.

This recipe helps teach/reinforce the following concepts:

• using the 5 senses to make observations
• color recognition
• hand-eye sorting
• hand-eye coordination
• comparing and contrasting items
• comparing and making predictions

Opportunities for Discussion:

1. Before the apples begin to dry, ask the students to make predictions about how the apples will change during the drying process.
    
2. Have students compare and record the speeds at which the different colored apples dry.
    
3. How do the apple slices change as they dry? Why?
    
4. Have students make observations with all of their senses before and after drying the apples. How do the apples smell? feel? look? taste? sound when you bite into them?
    
5. Create "before" and "after" charts to record the students observations before and after the drying process takes place. The "before" chart can contain the students initial observations, predictions and drawings. The "after" chart can list the students' final observations and drawings after the apples have dried.