Making lemonade from lemonades

We have a lovely lemonade tree out the back which goes mad with fruit, particularly at this time of the year -which reminds me that there's a great lesson around observations and lemons (http://static.nsta.org/files/sc0802_25.pdf or https://www.nsta.org/elementaryschool/connections/200802MinogueConnection.pdf without the reading)... Anyway, normally we're busy giving away as many of the lemonades as we can -the kids in my class used to love them but this year we've been a bit busy ignoring the fruit and so got a surprise when a few kids turned up at the door asking if they could have some lemons. Of course we said yes, and then found this beauty as the boys were picking "for a feed"!

I thought they'd be great for a quick observation... what has happened here? Is it one lemon or two? What would be there reasons for choosing either -especially if you only showed the first picture -there's only one connection to the tree (the "peduncle extremity" according to Saint Google and http://www.speciale.it/english/citrusfruit.html... I'm always amazed at the level of vocabulary that's out there for those who are experts in that particular field) but if you look at the other photos there are clearly two ends!

I did think that there's a conversation here about twins -identical and fraternal but that might be a bit deep! However in our science 'quickie', could children attempt to draw a cross-section of what they think this lemonade might look like? As always, I have a few thoughts about this (!) -how are they drawing the cross-section? How do they label and describe parts? Children might not know the different parts in specifics but should know "peel", "flesh", "seeds" and perhaps "segments" (although I do wonder about showing them a picture to use a starter with some of the simple names). 

Once they've had a go, you can show them my photos of the interior. I was actually surprised how much 'space' or gaps there was in the fruit -I thought it would be full of flesh but just mutated a little.

"Engaged in Science" certainly was happening in my house -and what's really interesting was it was my wife who was the curious one! And the lemonade was consumed happily -but not by me... yuck!

Of course, giving children some lemons to look at rather than one on a slide is always better... use magnifying glasses to look at the skin, the layers of skin, the segments, inside a seed, etc... lots to talk about, to taste, to smell, to generate questions (which is what the lemon of a lesson does).

As always, have a great day! Thanks to those of you who leave a comment -nice to know people do read these!

Paul