Let's have a picnic

Sensory can be eating new foods, or just playing with new foods. If you have a picky eater that won’t try new vegetables, let say, let them play with it first. I love the book Adventures in Veggieland by Melanie Potock MA CCC-SLP, for picky eaters. It has activities to do with the vegetables so they can explore it, and also recipes so they can make something and then try it. My favorite one is making “log cabins” with asparagus.

You don’t need the book though for this sensory activity, let them smash a banana or crumble crackers. You could take those smashed banana’s and make banana bread, chocolate chips make it extra yummy. Maybe they’ll crumble crackers and get crumbs on their hands. Some kids may freak out, if they are one of those kids, put it in a ziplock bag. They can smash it, see the crumbs, feel it a little through the bag but not get it on their hands. Maybe they’ll stick their hand in there to feel it a little. Let them mash potatoes or play with some pizza dough. Food should be fun and not scary. Letting kids see that it’s not scary and they can feel it and explore it and maybe just take a little taste. It's always fun to get kids involved in the kitchen.

You can make a picnic collage. Take pictures from magazines, off a cracker box or print some up. Make a collage of foods. Talk about what each food is. “Oh that’s a yummy apple. I like to eat apples.” Use words “eat, drink” so they can learn what are foods we eat and what are things we drink. You can print out this place setting as a guide for where to put food or drinks, you could use a paper plate or just make a collage on a paper.

Or use some natural paintbrushes like the tops of carrots or celery to paint with. You can stamp with an apple or stamp circles with a carrot. Make the paint with flour, water and food coloring. You have everything you'll need right in your kitchen.

Adventures in Veggieland isn’t really a book to read like a story, but it has great ideas for picky eaters to get them exploring new foods. On Vooks is Num Num Colors, which goes over colors and names foods that color. On Epic there are 2 books, Yummy! Good Food Makes Me Strong, which show different foods, different meal times. You can ask the kids what is he eating? What did you have for breakfast today? The other book is Colorful Foods, which goes over colors and names foods that are that color but this time with real pictures, I love real pictures. Whenever possible, I want real pictures which is part of the reason why I make my own printables. Since I use pictures I find online, I can’t sell them for money but I don’t care. For some real books, Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z is cute. Mine says it's Free on Kindle for Amazon Prime members. You gotta love free.

Go have a picnic outside. I know where I am, we are still social distancing and most places are closed, but maybe you can have a distant picnic with friends in the front yard or even in a parking lot. I just had a social distant picnic with my grandma and aunt yesterday, it was the best to talk to people that aren’t in my house or over video chat. I know I’m craving people. You can put chairs 6 feet away or sit on your own blankets 6 feet away from each other. You have to talk a tad louder but it’s sooo worth it.

Name foods, name colors, Use descriptive words “soft, hard, crunchy, squishy.” Use words “eat, drink”.