Fun Activities for Kids with Fruits and Vegetables!

Especially in today’s day and age, expressing the importance of healthy foods is a main goal for parents and teachers to express to their children. However, reiterating the benefits of Vitamin C may fall on deaf ears for a three year-old listener. There are many more enjoyable ways to introduce kids to the more colorful food groups, and not all of them involve a diagram of vitamins.

For those children who enjoy exploring, a trip to a local strawberry patch or vegetable garden may be in order. If a child enjoys hearing stories, introduce tales such as Johnny Appleseed at bed time. The old adage “Don’t play with your food” is a good rule-of-thumb to go by – unless it’s a pointed goal to make the meal fun. Children are naturally creative, and the creativity ranges from creating masterpieces on plates or in glasses with smeared and smashed blueberries to making animals out of vegetables. If a birthday or anniversary is coming up, children could even help you prepare a gift for the occasion . Of course, there doesn’t necessarily have to be a special event for you to get inventive!

If your children like boats or cars, a race between papaya boats, watermelon sailboats, and cheese cars could easily prove to be the most fun ever experienced at meals. Make vegetable men (or ladies) and play out stories about marathon races or other fun events. If you are looking for activities that more than one child could participate in, as with a classroom activity, you may want to consider the following options.

Several websites contain lists of fruits and vegetables, coloring pages, and online games to keep children involved and interested. If children prefer a more hands-on approach, put together a food-themed carnival for them to enjoy! Active games with food themes can not only encourage children to physically exercise, but can also improve attention and awareness through listening for specific vegetable or fruit names to be called. Develop a game of hide-and-seek, where different vegetables are hidden throughout the room, or invite the children to imagine what it would have been like to have been born a rutabaga, and then share their story with their peers.

There will be some children, indisputably, who shudder at the very thought of anything green and leafy. Wean them onto the idea with cute felt vegetable finger puppets! Coloring, as mentioned before, can also help settle them comfortably into the notion of eating brightly colored vegetables. For younger children, fun snack time ideas, such as the infamous “Ants on a Log” approach to celery, and activities will be beneficial.

If you want to expand past snack time and into breakfast or even a vegetable-themed party, there are a variety of recipes and resources for you to draw from. Kids can make their own tortilla pizzas, or design their own berry smoothie. Should the party extend into a sleepover, tell vegetable or fruit-themed stories, or relay the tale of Johnny Appleseed over a snack of apples and peanut butter.

The fun doesn’t have to stop at the home or classroom. Take your kids to a pick-your-own strawberry or pumpkin patch, or, around the holiday season, invite them to pick out their own Christmas tree.

The only barrier to the adventures you can have is your imagination. So, go create a broccoli circus or a grape penguin house. The sky,and produce isle,is the limit!