Grapes to Raisins Experiment

We studied the sun during week 3, unit 1 of My Father's World Kindergarten.  One of the experiments this week was to see how long it takes for the sun to turn grapes into raisins.  Blue Rock was super excited about this.  Here is how our experiment went.  Notice on the last day only 3 raisins remain.  That's because a certain little boy decided to eat them.  I wouldn't recommend eating them but I guess it's okay to if you want.  Also after the 2nd day, we stopped charting the shrinking of the grapes.  Life got too busy.  If your child is older and can do this on their own, I think it's a neat idea.

Even if you don't homeschool, this is a fun activity to do with your children.  Here's how we made sun dried raisins.  If you want to get fancy, grab a few different kinds and colors of grapes.  For our experiment, we stuck with seedless red grapes.

Day 1: We ate some grapes and raisins for our snack.  I originally put the grapes in a plastic bag. The instructions suggest putting them on a plate.  I decided not to do the plate since I didn't want to attrack any bugs or have my child reach over and eat them after they've been sitting out for a while. However, after consulting a few people, I changed it to an empty tomato holder.  Several people suggested I use something that had ventalization.

We talked about how much bigger grapes are than raisins

I made a chart to color the size of the grapes daily as they shrink

 

Blue Rock was excited! I told him to pick a sunny place and he chose this chair.

Grapes are in the sun

Day 2:

Not much change on day 2

Day 3:

Still pretty plump

Day 4:

Starting to shrivel and shrink

 Day 7:

We didn't monitor them this weekend so there were more changes today

Day 8:

They are getting more raisin-like

Day 9:

Looking good!

Day 10:

These look about ready

Day 11:

They accidently got a little wet and plumped up

Day 15:

My son has eaten some of them and said they tasted like raisins!

Day 16:

When I checked on the raisins today, I noticed only 3 were left.
My son had eaten the other ones.  I think we're done with this experiment. :)



They turned out pretty good!
The top are our original grapes, the bottom are raisins from the store.