Kids & Company Blog

Fun with Food and Nutrition – Mix a Fruit Salad!

I came across the ‘Mix a Fruit Salad” game recommended for preschool-aged children while looking through a newsletter issued by our Public Health Nutritionist in Nova Scotia. While I’m not one to suggest playing with your food, I do love this fun food activity. Looking for ways to have your children play together? The whole family can “Mix a Fruit Salad!”

 

So how does the activity work?

First off, it’s important to mention that when “Mixing a Fruit Salad” you won’t need to use actual food. You will just need pictures of individual fruits or vegetables, depending on what kind of salad you want to make. Every child will be given a picture to hold.

 

1) You begin by having everyone stand in a circle. This forms the “bowl” for the mixed salad (If you are playing the game at home with your children, you can rope off or draw out a bowl area if you do not have enough participants to make a full circle).

 

2) The leader of the activity calls out a fruit/vegetable and an action. The children will have to recognize what picture they are holding and join in the activity when their fruit is called.

 

For example: “I’m going to make a fruit salad… and in my fruit salad I’m going to have bananas that are jumping!” The children with the banana picture step into the bowl and jump around.

 

3) Repeat this a couple of times until all children have had a chance to jump into the bowl.

 

4) To wrap up the activity you will want to “stir the fruit salad”! The fruits in the bowl scramble around and the children who make the “bowl” make a stirring motion on the outside.

 

You can play this a couple times having different leaders for each round. This gives the children a chance to lead the game and suggest the actions. It keeps them thinking about all of the different types of fruits and vegetables as well.

 

I love this idea because it makes food fun for children and tries to introduce them to the ideas of proper nutrition at an early age. Hopefully, it helps to spark an interest for them too.

 

Cheers,

 

Chef Lisa Ruscica

Chief Food Ambassador

 

 

Posted on: Thursday March 13th, 2014

Posted by: Lisa Ruscica