February 2001

Sensory Fun with Food

Now that we are spending more time indoors it is a good time to provide some sensory fun for the children. These activities will help you and your child use the sense to discover new food and to look at familiar foods in new ways.

Colorful Fruits and Vegetables

Help your child try different types of fruits and vegetables by focusing on their colors. Visit the kitchen at your center and spend a few minutes looking at all the fruits and vegetables. Talk about the colors you notice — the vegetables in dark green, light green, deep yellow, red and white; and the fruits of yellow, red, green, blue and orange. Every now and then, plan a different —color fruit and vegetable color day. On Red Day, eat strawberries, cherries, watermelon, tomatoes, radishes and beets. On Yellow Day, eat bananas, peaches, corn and yellow squash. On Blue Day, eat blueberries and eggplant. Follow with Green Day, Orange Day and others you and the children can think of.

The Nose Knows

Good smells are an enjoyable part of eating. Invite your child to use the sense of smell to try to recognize some common foods.

• Gather an assortment of foods with distinctive odors, such as banana, cinnamon, chocolate, lemon, orange, onion and peanut butter. Dust a cotton ball with the cinnamon. Peel the fruits and onion. Then place a small amount of each food in individual dishes. Keep the food out of the children’s sight so there will be a surprise.
• Blindfold each child who wants to play along, then bring out the foods. Give each of them a turn at trying to recognize the foods just by smell. As necessary, let them taste, too. Talk about which foods were easiest to recognize by smell.

Touchy Feely

Children are also interested in how different foods feel before they are cooked. For example, let them feel dry rice, pasta, cornmeal, flour or rolled oats before it is cooked. For the more adventuresome of you, let the children feel some of each of the foods after they are cooked.

Tasting Parties

Always popular with the children are taste tests. There are a lot of creative ways to have taste testing parties. Try having the children taste raw and prepared foods. It is also fun to have children taste different kinds of fruits or vegetables. An alternative is to have the children taste raw, canned and frozen versions of the same fruit or vegetable.

For questions about this information, contact Amy J. Kolano (608) 266-7124

Last updated on 2/25/2008 11:52:35 AM