A Paediatric Dietitians Fun food activities to try at home with the kids
Needing some playful but educational games for home? Here are some engaging food activities/games that support children to learn about healthy eating whilst having fun!
🥒 Make your own plant person
Create a ‘plant person’ using real fruit and vegetables. Help children use toothpicks to make their plant person stand up and be three dimensional. You could always ask if the children want to eat some of their plant person for morning or afternoon tea.
✂ Get crafty with a food
Encourage children to go through old magazines or newspapers and cut out pictures of food. Younger children can then match these to a letter or get them to draw their own version of the food. Older children may stick pictures on a sheet from top to bottom in order of the day for example planning out a daily menu: breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner. Another option is to get them to create a recipe in their head and then find pictures of food ingredients that they could use to make that recipe for example they may stick pasta, tomato, onion, meat and herbs for a pasta bolognese.
🥕 Drum roll…..Food Letter of the day is “X”….
Each week choose a letter from the alphabet and taste and discuss plant foods which start with that letter. For example, for the letter ‘C’ try carrot, cauliflower, corn, cucumber, capsicum.
You could even play a quick version of scattergories with everyone n the family having to write down as many foods starting with that letter that they can think of!
🧁 Baking or cooking
It’s always a great opportunity to get kids involved in the kitchen. Don’t stress too much if they want to start with a slightly more “sugary” recipe - at least it gets them involved and off and running in the kitchen.
Substitute with wholemeal flour wherever possible - you can buy both SR or plain wholemeal flour. Because they both still contain wheat, the texture won’t be affected and the recipe will still turn out well, it’s just healthier!
Baking is a fun way to incorporate basic maths - measuring out the ingredients. Making pasta or gnocchi is another fun option - but be prepared for mess!! 😉
Find some of my tasty nutrient packed recipes HERE.
👨🏼🌾 Gardening
There’s a reason why you feel good outside in nature. Being amongst mother nature benefits both our physical and mental well being. For children, the benefits of being outdoors are significant. Nature play has clear physical benefits for developing children and positively impacts their mental and social well being.
Gardening is a fantastic opportunity to connect with nature. Science supports us getting our hands dirty. Research shows that it can support a healthy immune system - a Finnish study showed that children who spend time in forest dirt had better immune system regulation.
Gardening is a great opportunity to discuss where food comes from and how it grows. Some easy to grow, edible produce includes tomatoes, peas, beans, snow peas and herbs. The challenge will be - who will water them? :) :) :)
🍈 Making Faces out of Food
My daughter loved doing this last year at school -she came home so excited about trying raw onion and loving it (yuk!!) . The students grated carrot, zucchini, onion (and probably other vegies) together with chopping capsicum and cauliflower. In addition they used sultanas for eyes.
They had a great time making faces on a plate. There was absolutely no pressure to eat the vegies, just have fun. This is a great way to increase children’s sensory experiences (and then probably acceptance) with vegies in a non pressurised environment.
Use whatever you have at home and give it a go!
For children who have the opposite issue - don’t eat fruit, you could do this with fresh fruit.
👱🏼♀️ Blindfold Game
This is a great way to get your child to try new foods in a fun environment - but they have to be up for it.
If you think they will enjoy it, grab a blindfold (or tea towel tied behind the head), a plate and 8 small pieces of food and give it a go! Get them to taste each food and guess what it is before moving onto the next.
I’m positive that they will also have a great time creating a blindfold plate for you :) :) :)
For the first round, I would include 8 foods that they know, like and trust.
For the second round, I would include 5 foods that they know like trust and 3 foods that you would like them to try or that they haven’t had huge exposure to.
🤔❔ Guess the food!
Take turns in a guessing game of food. For example": “I am thinking of a food starting with the letter “B” which is green and soft… and you can eat it both raw and cooked etc etc. Give extra clues like colour, shape, texture etc, until children correctly guess the food. Let children take turns to choose and describe a food.
🍐 The fruit and veg guessing bag
This game helps children to learn about a variety of different fruits and vegetables. Simply place a variety of fruit and veg and ask children to feel inside the bag and guess what they are. Another option could be asking children to close their eyes and placing a fruit or vegetable in their hands. Ask them to guess what it is by feeling, smelling and even tasting it. Exploring food with all of their senses moves them closer to trusting and eating that food (…one day!).
🍄 The odd one out quiz
This is a quick “brain game” for younger kids that could be played anywhere. Let your child know that you are going to give them four words and they have to pick the odd one out. Include 3 fruits or 3 vegetables and one word that doesn’t fit (that isn’t a fruit or vegetable). For examples, you could say: potato, capsicum, dog and pumpkin. Ask your child to pick the odd one out. or strawberries, brush, grapes and watermelon
You can make the game a little harder by asking them to identify what the theme of the 3 others words is. You can make it really difficult (for other adults) by extending this to nuts and legumes :)
🥔 The salty potato experiment
This experiment teaches children a little about salt and how we should limit our intake. Start with filling two small bowls with water and mix salt into one of the bowls. Using a sticker or a marker, label the bowls so you know which one has the salty water and which one is plain.
Take a regular potato and cut it in half. Place one half in each bowl with the flat side (cut side) facing down. Leave the potato’s in the bowls for approximately 30 mins and watch what happens.
You will find that the salty water draws the water out of the potato, causing it to shrivel. The learning here is that just like the potato loses water when put in a salty solution, we too get thirsty and need extra water when eat too much salty food. We need to try to limit our intake of salty foods.
🎵 Make up a funny song about food
Have a competition between members of the family to come up with with funnies song about a food. For example Mr Broccoli from the Bungle Bungles who loves to do the high jump. They an use a familiar song (maybe even their favourite song).. and just change the words!
I hope some of these activities brings a smile to your faces. Family food should be fun!! Karina xx