Sweeteners for Kids: Sugar, Honey, Syrup, Agave and Stevia

Eight ways to make food sweet: sugar from sugar cane or sugar beet; honey, made by bees; syrup, like maple syrup; agave nectar, from the same plant as tequila; sweet dried dates; and stevia, a leaf whose sweetness is hundreds of times stronger than sugar.

Agave and stevia are the only words with a V. Honey, nectar and sugar read backwards.

Sweeteners Vocabulary: 8 Words to Find

Words run across, up and down; 4 of the 8 read backwards. The longest words are Nectar and Stevia, with 6 letters each.

Agave: A sweet syrup from the agave plant of Mexico, the same plant used to make tequila.
Cane: Sugar cane, a tall tropical grass whose sweet juice is boiled into sugar.
Date: The sweet, sticky fruit of the date palm, eaten dried or blended into a natural sweetener.
Honey: A sweet, thick syrup made by bees from flower nectar.
Nectar: A thin syrup, like agave nectar, or the sweet liquid of flowers that bees turn into honey.
Stevia: A sweetener from the leaves of a South American plant, hundreds of times sweeter than sugar.
Sugar: A sweet crystal made from sugar cane or sugar beet.
Syrup: A thick sweet liquid, like maple syrup, made from tree sap.

How to Solve the Sweeteners Word Search

"Agave" and "stevia" are the only words with a V: agave reads across, stevia runs upward. "Honey" has the only H, "syrup" the only P. Three words read backwards: honey, nectar and sugar.

Sugar and Nutrition Activities for Kids

Ask children which sweeteners come from plants and which one comes from an animal: honey, made by bees.
Taste a date and talk about the natural sugar in fruit.
Read food labels and find the sugar in breakfast cereals.