Fruit or Vegetable?

POP (Power of Produce) Take Home Activity

Topic: How can you tell the difference between fruits and vegetables?

Starting question: What do you think makes fruits and vegetables different?

Lesson: It can be tricky to tell the difference between fruits and vegetables. There is more to it than just sweet and savory! Today you’ll learn what makes fruits and vegetables different and you’ll get to practice telling the difference in an activity.

Fruits are special because they have seeds inside of them or on their skin. For example, a peach has one big seed in its center while strawberries have lots of small seeds on their skin. You can always see the seeds inside of a fruit, even if they are very small. Fruits come from the flower of a plant and only grow above ground.

Vegetables come from a seed instead of a flower. They can grow above or below the ground. They don’t have seeds inside of them. 

Another way to think of it is that the roots, stems, and leaves of a plant turn into vegetables and the flowers turn into fruits. 

Activity: View or download the activity sheet here (link). Look at each of the fruits and vegetables in the chart and decide which ones are fruits and which ones are vegetables. Remember: if you can see the seeds, it’s a fruit!