Good day, NLC parents!
At school, Ms Elizabeth and I successfully fool some of your little ones into eating their fish sticks by saying, “It’s Chick-fil-A day!” Chick-fil-A again? Many toddlers are picky eaters, so we understand that it’s not always easy to get your little ones to eat healthy at home.
Breakfast
Children often become more interested when the food looks like something else. When breakfast looks like a lion or a bunny, or even an ice cream cone, they might be more likely to eat it.
Healthy Snacks
Vegetables can resemble flowers or bugs. With a little bit of creativity, assembled shapes become far more appetizing. Talk about what they see too: “WOW! What’s that look like?”
Lunch and Dinner
Children usually like pasta with red sauce and meatballs. Make a scene with a spaghetti and meatball tree! Slice open a cooked carrot for a tree trunk and use broccoli florets for bushes.
Lunch can even resemble a frog and remind them of their classroom!
Let them Help!
Whenever possible, let the children help preparing the dish or snack. It’s fun!! It is a sensory activity! It is a great time for conversation! It is also a good time to talk about how colorful and yummy God made our food. Letting your children help can give them the courage to try and develop new tastes. Make sure you handle the knives and pokey sticks, though…
At school, some of your little ones can be enticed to eat a snack if we can sandwich it together. They love to manipulate their food and show us what they made. For example, they’ll place the pepperoni and cheese between two crackers, and proudly say, “Look! I made a sandwich!”
Here are a couple of ideas:
To make these you simply need to mash carrots for orange, spinach or frozen peas for green, and beets for red. Mix each mash with a little cream cheese to make a spread, and let your child make their own colorful, healthy sandwich.
Eating healthy and having fun while doing it, you can’t go wrong with that! Here are just a few ideas. If this is something your child enjoys, you’ll find thousands of fun recipe ideas for children on Pinterest.
I hope your children will be encouraged to try new tastes, and I hope you have fun bonding over a few of these ideas at home.
Best,
Ms. Danya