Pineapple Science

When we pulled the Pineapple out of our Bountiful Basket Saturday, Selena’s first question was, “How do you eat this thing? It’s all prickly!” I decided we were going to have some fun with the pineapple on Sunday before I made it into Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I printed out a coloring picture of a pineapple, and had Selena start to color as she examined the pineapple.

I began by asking Selena, “How do you think grandma will get to the fruit?” Below are her answers:

1. Cut off the leaves
2. Cut around the prickles
3. Cut it in half, (but grandma wants whole slices, I reminded her)
4. Slice it into little pieces (again I reminded her that I want whole slices)
5. Maybe we need the bottom of the pineapple, but never throw it away, cook it, Papa and I will eat it while you figure out the rest.

We then moved our fun into the kitchen. I quickly cut the top off the pineapple and handed it to Selena.

After she examined the leaves, I handed her the pineapple to examine.

She liked the smell but was still perplexed as to how we were going to get the fruit. So I made another slice from the top, and Selena quickly discovered it was like a puzzle.

I then cut the bottom off, and again Selena was having way too much fun trying to put the pineapple back together.


I think I kind of got in the way of Selena’s fun when I finally started to cut the prickly part from the fruit. She quickly disappeared, only to return to retrive some of the pineapple slices to share with Papa. Did she enjoy the fruit? No, not really but she sure had fun exploring it and tasting it.