Spark your kids' curiosity with these 10 fun food activities

Spending more time at home with your kids presents good opportunities for hands-on, creative learning experiences that enable them to explore their world with attention and care. If you’re looking for ideas to keep your children learning, here are 10 activities from Discovery Vitality dietitian Terry Harris that can spark in your kids an interest in how food is made and how it can be used

10 fun food activities for kids.

1. Guess what I'm eating? Cut up and sort out a variety of food items. Blindfold your kids and have them taste and smell different foods. They'll need to describe the various tastes, smells and textures in detail before they guess what it is. You can go through a vocabulary list beforehand, so they are equipped with adjectives like 'juicy', 'slimy', 'dry', 'spicy', 'tangy' and 'fruity', instead of just the usual 'yummy' or 'yucky'!
2. Make edible jewellery and homemade decorations by teaching your kids to make a healthy snack like plain popcorn at home, and then threading the popped kernels together with a needle and thread to form a long chain or loop.
3. Cook together as a family. Try to give everyone a turn at different stages – gathering and prepping the ingredients, measuring, mixing, setting the table and cleaning up afterwards.
4. Make a food rainbow collage. This is a great way to teach your kids the healthy eating principle of ‘eating the rainbow’. Get your kids to search for and cut or tear out lots of pictures of healthy food of all colours from magazines or brochures. Get them to sort the pictures into different colours, and then glue them onto a large sheet of paper in a rainbow shape.
5. Grow veggies from food scraps. Some seeds (like avocado), sprouts (like mung beans) and roots (like lettuce, celery, spring onion, ginger and celery) can be grown in wet cotton wool, water or soil. Research what you can plant from the scraps you have at home and work together to cultivate green fingers.
6. Brainstorm creative new recipes or interesting food combinations for the ingredients that you have in the pantry and fridge – you can even make it a competition to see whose idea is best!
7. Have your kids research their three favourite fruit and veggies and give a little presentation to the rest of the family after dinner on how they are grown, harvested and packed to arrive at the grocery store.
8. Make faces with different healthy foods. For example, you could spread cottage cheese on rice cakes and decorate it with toppings like cucumber for eyes, tomatoes for a mouth and grated carrots for hair. This could help make healthy foods more appealing to children.
9. Bake homemade bread. Make some whole-wheat or high fibre bread dough. Let your kids knead the dough and shape it into small buns. Add to the visual appeal of the buns by adding different types of seeds (like poppy, sunflower, pumpkin or sesame seeds) and making a paste of flour and water so your kids can top the buns with a simple design (like that on a hot cross bun).
10. Use paper plates to teach your kids about balanced meals. Give your kids lists of what kinds of foods fall under different food groups (like vegetables, protein, starch). Have them look through magazines to find pictures and cut or tear out foods or different groups. Then have them glue the pictures onto paper plates to make balanced breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Here's an illustration of a balanced meal that you can draw on each of their paper plates.

"I encourage all parents to use this time at home with your family to not just instil healthy eating habits and routines with your kids, but also help them become more comfortable with handling foods themselves and creating things from scratch," says Discovery Vitality dietitian Terry Harris.

"Making positive memories with kids in these ways can go a long way in embedding in them a healthy relationship with food as they grow up."

Vitality wants to support you and your family stay safe and healthy during these challenging times. Over the next few weeks, we'll keep sharing information on how to eat healthily during a pandemic on the Vitality at Home website. For health and news information on the Coronavirus, visit our dedicated COVID-19 hub.