More Activity Ideas
- Read a nonfiction book about the life cycle of an apple. Share an apple with your child. How did the apple get from the orchard to her plate? Talk about and look at pictures of all the people involved in growing and harvesting the apple, getting it to the grocery store, and putting it on the produce shelf.
- Keep a magnifying glass near the kitchen table so you and your child can look closely at fruits and vegetables at mealtime. Notice the textures, seeds, skin, etc.
- Make snack time a math time. When you cut fruits and vegetables into pieces, together count them, sort them, categorize them, or make patterns with them before you eat them.
- Start a seed collection with your child. Have her decorate an old shoebox with seed pictures. Label the box “My Seed Collection.” Whenever you eat foods with seeds, pull the seeds out and dry them on a paper towel. Put the dry seeds in the box. Play sorting, grouping, and categorizing games as the collection grows. [Watch the live-action video PEEP and the Big Wide World “Collecting and Sorting.” Type in the Search window: Watch Together: Collecting and Sorting.]
- Go on a hunt in the kitchen or while you are at the supermarket and look for foods that are from the different parts of the plant, for example, roots: carrot, potato; leaves: parsley, lettuce; flower: broccoli, cauliflower; seed: sesame, peas; bulb: garlic, onion; stem: celery, asparagus.
- Grow salad ingredients with your child. Get seeds or seedlings at the grocery store, plant store, or from friends/neighbors. Plant the seeds outside or in large plant pots. Give your child specific tasks of his own (pulling weeds, measuring growth, etc.) Talk with your child about being patient, as this activity will take a few months. When you harvest the vegetables, make and enjoy a salad with family and friends.
- Play a game of “What’s That Smell?” Gather spices that are familiar to your child. Smell each one. Put a small amount of each sice in a separate (non-see-through) container and poke a few holes in the top. (If your child has respiratory issues, choose spices you know will not cause a reaction.) Have him sniff the containers one at a time and try to identify the spice. Make up a song to sing along as you play, for example this one (sung to the tune of London Bridge Is Falling Down):
- What is that spice I smell,
Spice I smell, spice I smell?
What is that spice I smell?
I smell –––––––––!
- Watch the video Between the Lions “Chicks and Salsa” and see what happens when the farm animals smell some delicious smells coming from the farmer’s kitchen. Type in the Search window: Watch Together: Chicks and Salsa.
- The next time you’re eating a fruit or a vegetable say, I wonder where this <name of fruit or vegetable> came from? Go on a “where did it come from?” hunt to find out everything you can about where the fruit or vegetable came from.
- Look at books about plants. Point out vegetables that grow above ground and vegetables that grow below ground. Make a list and have your child illustrate it. The next time you go to the grocery store, bring your list and see if you can find any more vegetables to add to it.