Food & Nutrition Unit for Preschool
Sorry my preschool posts have been a bit MIA lately. Being away for a month totally got us out of our normal routine and we are just now starting back into it. Today I want to share with you a unit we did back in December all about food. We had a lot of fun learning about different kinds of foods and about which foods are healthy and unhealthy. It's never too early to start teaching your children to have a healthy relationship with food.
Here is a look at what we did:
Fruit & Veggie Sort: We started off our unit by collection all our toy fruits and vegetables and sorting them into two baskets. It was nice to see which ones Emerson knew and which ones she needed some help with. It also gave us a chance to talk about some of the fruits and veggies that we like and some that we want to try. Later in the week we did another sorting activity with healthy and unhealthy foods. We pulled out more of our toy foods like cookies, cakes and cupcakes and added them in with our fruits and veggies.
Painting with Food: This is a pretty simple activity but both my kids loved it. You can use any foods you want, but we chose fruits and veggies. I tried to pick ones that would make good prints like peppers and onions. I sliced the produce before hand and then gave each kid a plate with paint on it. We spread out a large piece of paper and I let them experiment making different prints with the fruits and vegetables. We also talked about which ones had seeds and what colors they were.
Feed the Feasters: This is technically a Thanksgiving game, but since it was early December and was about food we played it during our food and nutrition unit too. Emerson loves this game and we played it multiple times throughout the week. It's a great math game where you have to count out the food to feed to the feasters and then mark it on a bar graph to see who gets full first. You can buy your own copy of the Feed the Feasters from Playing Preschool here.
Noodle Sensory Play: This was a huge hit! I cooked up some spaghetti noodles and put them in a large tupperware and let the kids go to town. They played with the noodles for about an hour. Yes, they ended up all over the floor along with all their starchy goodness, but it was so worth it. There was a lot of tasting of the noodles too.
Noodle Drawing: We used our leftover noodles from our sensory play to create drawings. This is great for fine motor work. Emerson worked really hard to create shapes with her noodles. Since they are starchy they easily stuck to the paper. Once dry we decided to paint on top to create some textured paintings.
Fruit & Veggie Bingo: I found this great free printable for fruit and veggie bingo. Emerson and I played a few rounds while Emmett was sleeping. It was a great way to help her recognize the different fruits and vegetables and work on following directions. You can find the printable here.
Marshmallow Playdough: I found this recipe on pinterest and thought it would be fun for our food unit. It didn't turn out as well as it looked, but the kids still had fun with it. We ended up making two batches since the first one was too dry and started to crumble. You can find the recipe here if you want to try it yourself.
Homemade Granola Bars: My kids love granola bars. We decided to try something different and make our own. It was a great way to add some "cooking" to our unit and allowed the kids to see what goes in to making one of their favorite foods. I thought they tasted better than the store bought ones, but Emerson wasn't a fan. One batch made a ton of bars. We wrapped them up individually in some saran-wrap and they stayed fresh for about two weeks. You can find the recipe here.
Grape Structures: This was a really simple and fun activity. It is a great fine motor building activity as well as a S.T.E.M activity. All you need are some grapes and toothpicks. Use the toothpicks to connect the grapes to create structures. Emmett did surprisingly well with sticking the toothpick into the grapes. Emerson got a bit frustrated with this activity because her structure started to fall apart. I made a little person out of grapes and that cheered her up.
Yogurt Writing: If you've been following along you can probably tell that I like writing activities that also include a sensory aspect. I knew our food unit would be perfect for a sensory writing activity. I used plain greek yogurt, but any yogurt will work. I put a few scoops onto plastic plates and spread it around. Emmett has a blast eating and "writing" in the yogurt while I worked with Emerson on writing actual letters. She really likes writing a letter and having me guess which one it is.
Our food unit was a blast. There were so many amazing activities to choose from so we may have to revisit this unit again. Which one do you want to try with your little ones? Let me know in the comments below.
