Food, glorious food!

Making drawings or collages of favourite foods is an easy, inexpensive craft that keeps your kids busy and promotes the development of fine motor, creative and language skills and scientific understanding.

What you need:

• Recycled cardboard or card-stock to cut a plate shape from (or you can use a paper plate)
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Materials for collaging or drawing your favourite food e.g. colouring pens and pencils, paint, recycled wrapping paper, construction paper, bits of fabric, ribbon, kitchen foil, tissue paper, wool
• Glue (Top tip: White craft glue dries clear)
• Tape

What to do:

1. Cut out a plate shape from a piece of card or use a paper plate.

   Top tip: To make a cardboard plate:

   Carefully place a plate on top of a piece of card. Use a pencil to draw around the plate. Carefully move the plate. Cut around the shape you have drawn.

2. Decide what your favourite meal is and draw or collage it on your plate.

Be a science detective

• Think about your favourite food plate.

  • What would it be like to eat your favourite food every day?

  • Do you think that you would get fed up of eating it?

  • Would eating the same thing every day help you to stay healthy?

  • Can you think of any reasons why we need to eat lots of different foods?

  • Can you change something on your favourite food plate to make it a more balanced meal e.g. add a fruit or vegetable?

  • Think about why we need food and water. Why do we need to eat a balanced diet?

• Think about the five different food groups;

  • Proteins
  • Fats and oils
  • Carbohydrates
  • Minerals
  • Vitamins

What do each of the food groups help our bodies to do?

What food groups are included in your "favourite food" plate?

• Try sorting a bag of groceries into foods that;

  • give us energy (carbohydrates, fats and oils)
  • are body-building and help the body to grow and repair (proteins)
  • are maintenance foods (vitamins and minerals) and help us to maintain healthy bones and teeth and prevent diseases like scurvy.

Do some foods contain more than one food group?

• Look at and compare food labels. What do they tell you about the foods you are eating?

• Look at a menu.

  • Does it contain foods from all of the food groups?
  • Can you improve the menu to make it healthier for our bodies?

Other posts you might like:

Whirly Twirly Spinning Tops

Catch the carrots, hook the worms!