Field Trip to Learn About Fruit and Orchards

We started our day with a trip to the Laurel Packing House Museum to learn about apples and other kinds of fruit grown in the Okanagan.  My favourite part was behind the presenter, there were 6 different tree trunks and we had to match the fruit to their trees.  I need one of these for my apple unit in the classroom!!!!!

We also learned about the history of orchards and the tools they used to use on the farm.

Finally, we ended our tour with an apple tasting experiment.  I think a lot of the kids loved this part of the tour!

Next stop, Function Junction Orchard and Farm.  We were given a wonderful tour by farmer Glen where we were able to not only see how the fruit is grown but taste the fruit that was left on the trees. We sure ate a lot of different kinds of fruit!

What a view for an orchard!  I was in heaven.  I could definitely live on this piece of property.

This tree was grafted it used to be one kind of apple but 4 years ago Glen grafted the tree to produce a different kind of apple variety.  I had no idea this was even possible!

We tasted a fruit that was a combination of raspberry and blackberry.  They were delicious!

We also tried concord grapes that were very sweet and great to eat right off the vine.

Glen showed us his tractor and sprayer and what they are used for.

We also tasted more apples here on the farm.  I think the favourite by most students was the middle yellow apple.  It was called an Aurora Golden Delicious.  It was super, super sweet, crisp and DELICIOUS!!!  They don't grow very often and even on this farm they didn't have a lot of this type of apple.  The owners said these apples can't be boxed because they bruise so easily.  In total, they had 11 different kinds of apples growing on their farm.

The wonderful students of BWCS.  They were so amazing the whole day, being on the best behaviour and using their please and thank yous.  Well done kids!

At the end of our tour we were each given a bag and allowed to pick any apples we wanted off the tree.  It was sure a treat and some of the kids really got a lot of different kinds of apples.

Yes, even Arnold the school dog came on our field trip!  And he LOVED the farm.

We sure had fun on our trip and I can't wait to see all the kids tomorrow to talk more about our wonderful adventure.  Stay tuned for our field trip big book on what we learned and what we got up to today.