This will be the last installment of Camp Wannalaffalotta for the summer. Where did the time go? The FishFam had a great, albeit too short, summer. I hope you did, too.
But, really, the activities laid out in Camp Wannalaffalotta can provide hours of family engagement all year long. Next rainy day, go browse the archives. Or if you’re building a preschool experience at home, the Camp Wannalaffalotta series can provide a wealth of topics to explore.
Ready to talk about food?
Food is such a big part of our everyday that there is no shortage of topics and resources you could explore with your children. I am barely scratching the surface today. Nutrition, food preparation, and gardening are all great topics to discuss. Communicating about how, why, and what we eat helps our kids learn good eating habits as well as understand some of the methods to our madness.
Get Reading!
Picture Books and Easy Readers
The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Junk Food
From the Garden: A Counting Book about Growing Food
How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?
Pancakes, Pancakes!
Blueberries for Sal
Nonfiction Books
The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book About Food Chains
My Food Pyramid
Good Enough to Eat: A Kid’s Guide to Food and Nutrition
The Honey Makers
The Milk Makers
Apples
The Vegetables We Eat
Get Cooking!
Obviously, you can’t talk about food without making some and eating some. Cooking with your kids can be a rewarding experience, especially if you tie it into the reading you’ve been doing. If you read a book about pancakes, then go make some pancakes together. It’s that easy.
If you’re not sure how to start cooking with kids, buy my ebook: Cooking with Children. It’s chock full of recipes and tips for cooking with kids.
Get a Movie On!
Ratatouille
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Got a great food related activity?
Share it in the comments.
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Thanks for all of the great foodie book recommendations for kids! We’re on a big Magic School Bus kick around here, so I think I’m going to have to pick up that Gets Eaten
“Communicating about how, why, and what we eat helps our kids learn good eating habits as well as understand some of the methods to our madness.” Yes – I forget sometimes that what is obvious and “old hat” to me is brand new to them. Thanks for the reminder to talk, explain, and not to take for granted that they know the whys or the hows.
How fun! Thanks for sharing!!
S’mores is always a fun one:-)
We’re going to be doing “official” cooking lessons this year with my kindergartner. I’m basing the curriculum on “Good Eats” from the Food Network. The kids love the show, so we’ll watch an episode then go make something from it.
I’ve found out that my son (2 yo) loves the kitchen as much as I do if not more. We started doing big projects like making cookies but that would leave a big mess and we couldn’t do it every day. So I’ve been experimenting letting him do little things like setting the table (he loves to pick out who gets what plate and a lot of times he gives my husband a lot of extra silverware), and this morning I let him make his own toast (with a lot of help from me). Thanks for the ideas!
I discovered a great book a while back – Mudluscious: Food and Activities Featuring Food for Preschool Children. I decided to plan a few months-worth of preschool activities for my daughter around the topics in this book. A lot of the activities in the book seem more geared for early-elementary, but it has good book lists and ideas for a wide variety of food-related themes.
Another good book linking children’s literature and food is Cook-A-Book by Leslie Cefali.
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