Nutrition

Crafts

*Make place mats - have children draw a picture on a piece of construction paper, laminate for durability.

*Cut and paste food pictures onto a paper plate.

*Make food pals - glue body parts to precut vegetable shapes.

*Make carrot top hats - make a cone from orange construction paper and add green feathers for stems.

*Pudding painting - fingerpaint with pudding. Puddings that look white but change colour when water is added are especially fun for this activity.

*Lentil mosaic - children glue a variety of lentils to paper to create a mosiac picture.

*Pasta necklaces - children thread pasta onto a piece of wool. Colouring the pasta with food colouring will allow children to create patterns and work on math skills in a fun way.

*Pasta collages - provide a variety of different pastas for children to glue with onto paper.

*Make peanut butter playdough (if there are no peanut restrictions at your center).

*Cereal necklaces - have children lace cereal o's (cheerios/fruitloops/etc) onto wool.

*Fruit and vegetable stamping - provide different foods to dip in paint and stamp onto paper. Broccoli creates a neat shape as does bell peppers. Potatoes are great to cut shapes out of.

*Utensil painting - dip different cooking utensils into paint and stamp - potatoe mashers, meat mallets, spatulas, etc all make neat shapes on paper.

Science

*Sort foods into the 4 food groups. *Sensory games: smell and taste - identify different food by smelling and tasting with blindfolds on.

*Mould experiments - have 2 containers of food and cover one with plastic wrap and the other leave out to the air. What happens and why. Some food ideas - apples, bread, cracker, cheese, etc.

*Match seeds to the fruit they came from.

Block Area

*Build with various sized food boxes.

Dramatic Play

*Make a restaurant - add menu's, cloth napkins, kitchen, chef hat, aprons, pads of paper and pencils for taking orders, etc.

*Make a grocery store - set up a grocery cart, paper bags for packing groceries, cash register, areas of foods for sorting such as cold food section, meat section, bread area, cereal isle, treat section, etc.

Circle Time

*On top of Spaghetti

*Peanut Butter Sandwich

*Apples and Bananas

*Animal Crackers in my Soup

*Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow

*The Carrot Seed

*Way up High in an Apple Tree

*Peanut Butter and Jelly

*Down Around the Corner at the Bakery Shop

*Put a Peanut on the Track

*Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar

*Snack Attack
*Don't forget the Oatmeal

*Donald's Day in the Kitchen

*Looks Like Spilt Milk

*Frank and Zelda

*Grover and the 26 Scoops

*good food/junk food (toss plastic foods into bins with happy and sad faces

*hot potato

*Memory Game - set up a tray with different foods (either plastic or real). Allow children a few minutes to study tray and then cover with a tea towel. Remove one of the items in the tea towel and have children view tray again... what food item is missing?

Water & Sand Play

*Add measuring cups and funnels to the water table.

Outdoor Play

*Plant a vegetable garden.

*Egg on spoon races.

Field Trips / Special Days

*Tour a restaurant.

*Visit a bakery.

*Visit an orchard.

*Have a fun with food day.

Songs

Animal Crackers In My Soup

Animal crackers in my soup
Monkey's and rabbits loop the loop
Gosh oh gee don't I have fun
Swallowing animals one by one
In every bowl of soup I see
Lions and tigers watching me

I make them jump right through a hoop
Those animal crackers in my soup.

When I get a hold of the big bad wolf
I push him under to drown
I bite him into a million bits
And I gobble him right down
When their inside me where it's dark
I walk around like Noah's Arc
I stuff my tummy....?
With animal crackers in my soup.

Animal crackers in my soup
Do funny things to me
They make me think my neighbourhood
Is a big menagerie
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkey's and rabbits loop de loop
Gosh oh gee don't I have fun
Swallowing animals one by one!

Printouts

Related Sites

Cooking With Young Children

Hummingbird Educational Resources

Body Break

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