Please give answers, comments and/or explanations for 4th graders to understand.

Thank you

It is classified as a fruit but used as a vegetable

AskOxford: Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

It's a fruit botanically, but a vegetable legally. See Tomato - Wikipedia.

Fruit

Hi, teach123!

If I were to explain this to a group of fourth graders, I would would tell them that because a tomato has seeds inside of it, that in the scientific way of thinking, it's considered to be a fruit. However, for someone who prepares a tomato in some sort of recipe, it's considered, most of the time, to be a vegetable.

Thanks!

It is a fruit because of the seed thing, but does that make a cucumber a fruit also?

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Originally Posted by debyrenee

It is a fruit because of the seed thing, but does that make a cucumber a fruit also?

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Hi, debyrenee!

Yes, technically, a cucumber is a fruit also.

Cucumber Fruit or Vegetable - Google Search

Thanks!

It is a member of the night shade family of plants, considered a fruit, and was once actually poisoness until it was domesticated.

Hi, JJCH!

It would appear that you and I also have more things in common as far as interests are concerned. I'm an avid vegetable and flower gardener; have taken and successfully passed the course to be a Master Gardener and also have been the secretary as well as the president of our local horticulture club.

Thanks!

Yes sir! Avid gardner here as well! Including water gardens

Here is a dictionary definition of a vegetable:
The edible part of a plant, such as the root of the beet, the leaf of spinach, or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower.

And a dictionary definition of a fruit:
The ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant, together with accessory parts, containing the seeds and occurring in a wide variety of forms.

A tomato is an edible part of a plant. It is also a ripened ovary which contains seeds. Therefore it is a fruit AND a vegetable.

The answer that works for everything is that vegetables are a complex carbohydrate and fruit is a simple carbohydrate, fruit contains a lot more sugar than vegetables. Therefore fruit is sweet and vegetables are savoury, it's a simple as that.

Noticing the date of your question Teach, you have likely already taught this lesson in your class, but I guess this might be the simple complicated way to teach it! ;)

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Originally Posted by JJCH

Yes sir! Avid gardner here as well! Including water gardens

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Thanks, JJCH! I'm going to have to remember that! Maybe you could use that run-off in your driveway as another water garden area! LOL! :D

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Originally Posted by Clough

Thanks, JJCH! I'm going to have to remember that! Maybe you could use that run-off in your driveway as another water garden area! LOL! :D

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I can grow melons there! Lol

Just as an interesting aside... I read that the tomatoe had been considered poisonous for hundreds of years because they were being cooked in lead pots whereby the acid dissolved enough of the lead to cause the problems.