Fun with Food by Wendy Brant, OTR/L

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Messy and playful interactions with food are a normal and formative part of childhood development.  Before children learn the motor skills needed to neatly feed themselves pureed foods with a spoon, for example, they may rub the food all over their trays (and their bodies!), squish it through their fingers, and throw it on the floor.  As they do this, they are learning about the food on a sensory level: what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like, and what it will be like inside of their mouths. Children learn by playing!  Play turns off the body’s stress response and lets kids really experience and process the properties of the foods they interact with. Recent research indicates that hands on experiences with food support children in being more willing to interact with and even eat a variety of healthy foods.

 Here are some fun, playful activities you can do to promote a healthy, varied diet. Make sure your child is easily able to wipe or wash hands whenever they would like.  Most importantly, have fun!

·       Finger paint with purees. Use the natural colors of the food (e.g. different flavors of yogurt), or use food coloring for additional colors.  If getting food on their hands is too much for your child, use tools like a pastry brush, spoon, spatula, or even another food.

·       Build with food.  Build simple designs like faces out of cucumber slices and raisins or by stringing Cheerios on a string to make a necklace.  Older kids can build more complex structures like ginger-bread style houses with crackers and peanut butter or 3D structures with grapes and toothpicks.  The sky’s the limit! 

·       Food stamping.  Use food as a “stamp” to dip in paint or colored applesauce and then stamp it on paper.  What different shapes can you make with the same food?  What happens when you cut the food and then stamp it?

·       Cook together.  Kids love to be in the kitchen with their parents!  Allow lots of opportunities for touching, smelling, and even taste-testing if your child is ready.

·       Make a smoothie together. When your child helps, he or she can also learn about each food that goes in the blender.

·       Food guessing game.  Guess the identity of a food with eyes closed by using only smell, touch, taste, or sound. 

·       Be a food scientist.  What foods float or sink?  Cut foods open and see what they look like inside.  Use test tubes and mix foods together.  Look at foods under a magnifying glass.

·       Dig in a sensory bin of food to search for a hidden object, like a favorite toy.  You could use cooked or raw noodles, popcorn kernels (popped or unpopped), sunflower seeds, oats, or even something goopy like jello!  Tools like scoops and cups can help some reluctant kids get engaged.

·       Make edible play dough.  This website has several recipes: https://kidsactivitiesblog.com/53932/edible-playdough-recipes

·       Pretend play.  If your child enjoys pretend play, orange slices can be smiles, bread slices can be used as a hat, a carrot stick works like a fishing pole, or you could build a “food village”.  Bunny crackers can talk to each other and frolic around, a piece of celery can be a car.  Have fun with it and let your child be your guide!   

For more ideas for food play visit: https://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2012/08/27-ways-for-kids-to-play-with-food.html

Research Article: Play with your food! Sensory play is associated with tasting of fruits and vegetables in preschool children by Coulthard H, Sealy A. From Appetite. 2017 Jun 1;113:84-90

 

Originally posted by Growing Healthy Children Therapy Services via Locable