Do you need a simple activity that will not only be fun and creative but also fill your kid’s tummies with healthy food? Well, letting your child create their own animal, using healthy bits and pieces from within your fridge worked a treat for us!
After a week of unhealthy eating (we still have so much chocolate in the house left over from Easter), I brought out all the healthy foods for afternoon tea and let Miss Possum make her own animal using them. She didn’t use all the foods I put out but the point was that she chose which healthy ingredients she wanted to eat and use to create her animal.
What we used:
- healthy food (you can use whatever you have in the pantry and fridge). We mainly used fruit.
- skewers and toothpicks (with parental supervision)
- cake decorating gel
- creativity
This activity was great for developing Miss Possum’s fine motor skills and also encouraged critical thinking. Working out how to make an animal out of fruit can be quite challenging!
Educational Tips
- Print out a picture of the animal to help them create it using food. Discuss the parts of the animal and what food you could use to replicate it.
- Make an insect and use three big bits of fruit to create a head, an abdomen and a thorax (you’ll probably need fruit for legs too!)
- Talk about bones and how the skewers work in a similar way, to allow our body to be strong and stand up.
Miss Possum made a giraffe using blueberries for feet, an orange for the main body, carrots for the neck and a strawberry and grapes for the head. She’s never really liked oranges, so I was quite shocked at her choice but after she’d made the giraffe and started eating it, she devoured it so fast I didn’t even get to cut myself a slice! She really did fill her tummy with all her daily fruit requirements in one sitting.
I felt the twins were a little too young to make their own, so we did it together. I helped them thread the grapes and blueberries onto the skewers and we ended up creating lizards, which they loved! These caterpillar kebabs gave me the inspiration for the lizards below.
Miss Possum’s already asked me if we can make more tomorrow and I’ve said yes. How can I say no to getting more good food into their tummies and learning about animals at the same time?!
Have you made food fun for your kids lately?
Another cute idea Pen and something that we do occasionally in our house. Caterpillars and monkey faces have been our go-to fave fruity friends.
It’s so much fun being creative, especially using different mediums and fruit is quite a different medium to work with. She did quite well though. I want to see your caterpillars and monkeys!
Awww…look at those gorgeous little faces…and they are eating fruit! I have to try this…they are so cute Penny!! Those lizards are my favourite!
Yay to eating fruit. Although, I just was introduced to an apple slinky (I didn’t know anything about them) and they would make great fruit snakes. I’m sure my kids would devour those too!
These are so cute and I love all the changes you’ve made to your look! That is such a great photo of you in the sidebar!
Thanks honey! It’s about time I got a little about box. I do wonder what people think the animal in the picture is. I’ve already been asked if it’s a type of cat! :p