Authors:

Kate Collins & Maxine Molyneux

NNSW Health Promotion

Northern NSW Local Health District

NNSW Health Promotion PO Box 498 LISMORE NSW 2480

Phone: (02) 6640 0154

Email: kate.collins@health.nsw.gov.au

This work is copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part for study training purposes subject to the inclusion of an

acknowledgement of the source. It may not be reproduced for commercial usage or sale. Reproduction for purposes other than

those indicated above requires written permission from the NSW Ministry of Health.

Encouraging young children to eat vegetables can sometimes be challenging, but sensory-based food

education may be the answer. There is evidence that using sensory exploration through structured

activity programs in child care settings can support children to eat more vegetables. This includes

looking, listening, feeling, smelling and tasting both usual and unusual vegetables every day. These

playtime activities familiarise children with vegetables which can then translate to subsequent

tasting at mealtimes. The greatest benefits have been seen in services that create these learning

experiences for at least four consecutive weeks. However, finding opportunities to embed them into

regular service routines is more optimal.

Links to the NQF and EYLF

This resource provides a range of learning experiences that promote healthy eating. Encouraging

children to explore and eat vegetables directly relates to the National Quality Standards in the

following areas;

Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice. This resource provides suggestions for

opportunities to provide children with experiences that actively promote or initiate the

investigation of ideas and thinking about healthy eating.

Quality Area 2: Children’s Health and Safety. Standard 2.1 Health - Each child’s health and

physical activity is supported and promoted. Furthermore, Element 2.1.3 states ‘Healthy

eating and physical activity are promoted and appropriate for each child’.

It also has strong links to the Early Years Learning Framework, outcomes;

Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.

Benefits of Exploring Vegetables with Young Children

Children are natural explorers. They are always asking questions and learning about the world

around them. There are so many opportunities to explore vegetables with children in exciting and

fun ways. Such activities let young children learn about the five senses while exploring new and

familiar vegetables. It can also allow them to learn how to use science tools, identify colors and

shapes and to develop language and fine motor skills. Young children are able to understand and

identify many sensory concepts. This includes changes between raw and cooked food; types of

smells and tastes (sour, sweet, bitter); and characteristics of food (colors, textures, and shapes).

Using this resource to become a Vegetable Explorer at your service

Throughout this resource you will find a range of activities and ideas to support the exploration of

vegetables using the five senses. You will find a list of materials for most activities however if you do

not have those listed, don’t let that stop you! Think of small changes you can make to the activity, or

other materials you can use, to make the activity work for your group. You will also have access as

an accompanying poster you can use to support sensory exploration of vegetables.

The activities are designed to be used again and again so children can practice their growing skills

and knowledge. To keep the children engaged, bring new foods into the activities, select more

challenging food pictures, or see how many different cultures you can “visit” at the table.

When exploring vegetables using the five senses, consider starting each new sense by connecting it

to something already known to children. A quick internet search shows there are hundreds of books

available to buy (or at local libraries) on the five senses, or each individual sense. These are a great

way to introduce the topic. You will see that in this resource we have started each sense with ideas

to encourage children to understand the sense itself first, before engaging that sense to explore

vegetables.

You will also find that across all of the senses, there is scope to scaffold general learning about

vegetables, not forgetting that children are inquisitive learners! Here’s some questions to keep in

mind:

Which of these vegetables are the roots of a plant?

Which are the leaves of a plant?

Which are the stems?

Which are the seeds?

How do you know?

Depending on how you decide to explore this topic, there are a lot of possibilities that can be

considered related to how far the Veg Explorer theme can be integrated into your room’s activities

as a whole. These ideas should provide some inspiration:

As a group you may like to create your own Veggie Super Hero! Draw it, craft it, describe it,

name it and use this super hero as a motif throughout all the discovery sessions! You could

then turn all the children’s experiences and exploration into the services very own a super

hero story book.

You could pick one vegetable at a time and get children to describe it using each of the

senses. These responses could be collated and recorded in a book so that you have a story

book where individual vegetables are described using the five senses. Consider including

quotes and stories from the children.

Create a 5 senses puzzle using your poster and build on it as you learn about each sense e.g.

after the introduction to sight, put that part of the puzzle up on a wall

When play dough is provided as an activity, encourage children to make vegetables. Create

brown playdough and they can practice planting their seeds.

When drawing is provided as an activity, encourage children to draw vegetables or to draw

their own face when they experienced different tastes e.g. sour

We hope you enjoy this resource and exploring vegetables with the children!

Our sense of sight uses light reflection to allow us to perceive shapes, distance, movement, colour

and depth. This is why we find it more difficult to see in the dark.

Introduce the concept of sight to the children…

- What part of the body do we use to see?

- What happens if we close our eyes?

- Why do you think we have 2 eyes, and not 1 or 3?

Aspects of sight can be described in many ways: is a vegetable green or yellow, large or small, whole

or chopped, dirty or clean.

Encourage children to start thinking about their sense of sight by playing games such as I Spy,

using sight based characteristics such as colour, texture, shape, size and location to describe

the object you spy. You can also experiment with blindfolds and eye patches, allowing children

to explore what happens when we lose our ability to see.

A fun way to introduce the exploration of sight to parents is by creating a “Who do these eyes

belong to?” poster. Take pictures of each children’s eyes and create a collage. Hang it near the

service entrance and challenge parents to recognise their child’s eyes!

EXPLORING COLOUR!

The most obvious aspect of sight to many children is colour. Use this as a platform for exploring

vegetables using the sight sense.

What you will need:

Patches of colour e.g. green, white, brown, red, orange, purple, yellow

Pictures of a range of vegetables from each colour group (or the actual vegetables)

Nutrition Learning Experience Ideas:

Get children to identify the colour patch

- Can they think of something that is the same colour?

- Can they think of vegetables that are that specific colour?

Get the children to identify each of the vegetables

- If they can’t identify it, give them clues and research it

- Have they eaten the vegetable before?

- What colour is it?

Provide each child with one or two pictures of vegetables and get them to match them to

their colour to create a rainbow

- You can ask the children whether all green vegetables are exactly the same colour. Why

might they be slightly different?

EXTENSION ACTIVITY

Explain that each colour gives certain foods special super powers for our body. This is why we should

try to eat a rainbow of fruit and vegetables each day. A few examples are below…

Red food gives you a strong heart

Orange food helps you see in the dark

Yellow food helps your body heal cuts

Green food helps you fight of sickness

Blue and purple foods give you a strong brain

White foods give you energy

See the EXPLORING THE VEGETABLE RAINBOW activity in the Putting All The Senses Together section

for more ideas for exploring vegetables with the “Eat the Rainbow” motif.

EXPLORING WHOLE VEGETABLES AND THEIR INSIDES

Vegetables often look completely different on the inside, when compared to their whole form. Take

the time to discover all the secrets hidden within some vegetables!

What you will need:

A selection of whole vegetables that you can cut in half. The options are endless but some

good examples include potato, zucchini, pumpkin, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, capsicum,

cabbage

Picture cards that depict whole vegetables and cut vegetables. You can download a set at

https://nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/health-promotion/files/2018/01/Vegetable-Bingo-

cards.pdf

Nutrition Learning Experiences Ideas:

Exploring Real Vegetables: select one whole vegetable to explore at a time

- Can children identify the vegetable? What colour is it? Have they tried it before?

- Can you guess what colour the inside will be? What will it look like?

- Can they draw a picture of the inside of the vegetable?

Inside Out Bingo or Matching game

- Create a bingo set or matching game out of the picture cards. Challenge children to

match the cut version to whole versions of vegetables.

EXPLORING UNDER A MAGNIFYING GLASS

Magnifying glasses are a great way for children to look closer at the world around them. Use

magnifying glasses to explore the skin, stalks, leaves, seeds and flesh of vegetables! The kids will be

excited by what they discover.

What you will need:

A selection of vegetables and herbs: leaves, stalks, whole vegetables and cut up vegetables

will all work.

Magnifying glasses and child friendly tweezers to examine each vegetable with

Nutrition Learning Experiences Ideas:

Explain to children what a magnifying glass is

- Let them look at a picture using a magnifying glass and ask them whether it makes the

picture bigger or smaller

Examining vegetables

- Put a selection of vegetables on a tray for children to examine (whole / cut / leaves /

seeds / stalks)

- Generate discussion around shape, colour, texture, patterns and size. They may even be

able to count seeds that they can see.

- Viewing the veins in a cross section of celery, or the circular patterns in carrot cross

sections are a great place to begin.

- You may also wish to create some binoculars using toilet paper rolls and twine, and let

children explore the garden.

EXTENSION: if you have access to a microscope you can try looking at parts of vegetables under it.

Many young children’s opinions on sound suggest that they do not think too deeply about their

experiences with sound or hearing and often take their experiences for granted. The few opinions

they do have vary greatly.

Sound can be described in different ways such as loud, quiet, high, low, hiss, rustle, growl, chirp. We

can use these characteristics of sounds to identify types of sounds and their sources.

Introduce the concept of sound to the children…….

- What part of the body do we use to hear?

- What happens if we cover our ears?

- Invite children to identify words that describe sounds and to share how those words make

them feel…. (growl might make them feel scared, a chirp from a bird might make them feel

happy, rustle might make them feel inquisitive about what is making that noise). These

descriptive words will enrich their language.

Encourage children to explore their sense of sound with easily accessible items that you have in your

room such as simply clapping hands, closing a book, rolling a ball, or tapping two blocks together.

Ask children to describe these sounds. You can even change the tone and volume of your voice, for

example, whispering when telling a story.

A surprising number of sounds can be heard in a room when everyone is quiet. Background sounds, such as birds, traffic sounds, aircraft noise and building construction sounds often go unnoticed until identifying them becomes a focus for the children. Ask the children to identify all the different sounds they can hear.

What sounds can you hear when you are out in

the garden?

EXPLORING VEGETABLES THROUGH SONG

Songs and rhymes are a great way to start building interest and familiarity with different types of

vegetables. Here are some songs that include vegetables, along with our own adaption of Old

MacDonald had a Farm.

The Big Vegie Crunch theme song - The Vegetable Plot https://healthy-kids.com.au/the-big-

vegie-crunch-song/

Hot Potato - the Wiggles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v4-eAefurY

"Breakin” Brussels Sprouts - Veggie Boogie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhc6-InBRAg

Root for Radish – Healthy Kids Music Factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzCFaBXiWfg

Five Little Pumpkins - Super Simple Songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trDl36m9pgA

The Farmers Plants the Seeds - The Kiboomers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRhGOdqWIIo

Old MacDonald Had a Farm – the Vegetable Edition

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee i ee i o

And on his farm he had some carrots, Ee i ee i o

With a crunch-crunch here, And a crunch-crunch there

Here a crunch, there a crunch, Everywhere a crunch-crunch

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee i ee i o

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee i ee i o

And on his farm he had some beans, Ee i ee i o

With a snap-snap here, And a snap-snap there

Here a snap, there a snap, Everywhere a snap-snap

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee i ee i o

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee i ee i o

And on his farm he had some tomato, Ee i ee i o

With a squish-squish here, And a squish-squish there

Here a squish, there a squish, Everywhere a squish-squish

Old MacDonald had a farm, Ee i ee i o

More songs can be found at http://www.childfun.com/themes/food/vegetables/

EXPLORING VEGETABLES THROUGH NAME

Begin to build a child’s vegetable curiosity through game-based play. Challenge them to match

names to pictures of vegetables displayed around the play area.

What you will need:

Pictures of a number of vegetables (both familiar and new veggies) printed and laminated on

A4 paper

Nutrition Learning Experiences Idea:

- Explore the pictures of both the familiar and new vegetables, getting children to identify

each by name.

- Research any vegetables they are unfamiliar with

- Place pictures of vegetables around the play area so that the children can see them.

- Call out the name of a vegetable, and ask children to identify its picture and run towards it

EXTENSION: Integrate other Fundamental Movement Skills into the game. Ask children to jump,

hop, gallop, leap or skip towards the vegetable that you call out.

EXPLORING VEGETABLES THROUGH SOUND AND MAKING MUSIC

Use vegetables in a completely novel way… use them to make music! This will be sure to spark

interest and show children just how much fun veggies can be.

What you will need:

A smart phone / tablet with sound recording and editing apps installed.

A selection of vegetables that all make different sounds. Some ideas include cherry

tomatoes, popping corn, carrot, pumpkin (whole), lettuce, broccoli, a bunch of herbs or

spinach.

Nutrition Learning Experiences Idea:

Listening – listen to the sounds a selection of vegetables make as an educator creates them

in front of the group.

- Ask children to describe the sound? You can use prompts like does it sound fresh? Is

it hollow? Is it crunchy?

- You can also take the children for a walk through your service’s garden and ask them

to listen to what they can hear. Can they hear rustling? Or bees? Or Birds? Or the

crunching of rocks under-foot?

Exploring – give the children an opportunity to explore the sounds they can make with each

vegetable. Challenge them to make new and exciting sounds.

- Ask children to describe the sound? You can use prompts like does it sound fresh? Is

it hollow? Is it crunchy?

Recording – use your smart phone / tablet to record some sounds that they children can

make with vegetables (it’s important to make sure there is no background noise when

recording) and play them back once recorded. Some examples may include

- Tomato squishing

- Popcorn popping

- Carrot snapping

- Lettuce crunching

- Hollow pumpkin tapping

- Herbs / spinach rustling

Music Making – use a voice loop or custom soundboard app to create your very own Veggie

Band and make music using the sounds you have recorded.

EXTENSION: Provide a selection of vegetables and ask children to explore what noises they make

trying to tap them, snap them or crunch on them. You can ask if they think the sound will be loud or

soft, etc. If your service has a vegetable break early in the day (some services call this Crunch Time),

ask children to all crunch on their vegetables at the same time and see how loud it can be.

While other senses are handled by specific parts of the body like your eyes or ears, your sense of

touch is found all over your body. Without the sense of touch, you would not feel your feet touch

the ground when you walk or feel something press against you, or something in your mouth or pain

when you are hurt.

We can feel things in many different ways including hot, cold, wet, dry, pain and pressure. Things

also feel heavy or light, rough or smooth, lumpy, bumpy, fluffy, furry, soft or hard and all things in

between.

Introduce the concept of touch to the children…

- What parts of the body do we use to feel?

- What is the main part of the body we use to feel? (our fingers)

- Why do you think we feel all over our body? (to keep us safe e.g. heat, pressure etc)

Encourage children to start thinking about their sense of touch. You could use a sensory board, but if

one is not available then simply touching items in the room around them will offer the same

experience. Ask children to describe what they are feeling. Perhaps children could make a sensory

board for the room! They could trace their hand like the one in the image and stick on a variety of

items with different textures.

Once children are comfortable touching a range of vegetables you may wish to extend this

experience by encouraging them to kiss the vegies you are introducing them to. This is often the

precursor to then tasting a vegetable or new food.

EXPLORING VEGETABLES THROUGH CRAFT

Craft is a fun way to get children familiar with touching vegetables and using them in different ways.

It will also spark their curiosity as they ponder the versatility of veggies.

What you will need:

Food Art: Paper, paint, a selection of vegetables chopped / whole that children can use as

stamps and paint with. Some ideas include: celery leaves, base of celery (stamp), potato,

carrots, carrot tops, cross section of capsicum. You can get imaginative with anything on

special or in your garden!

Corn Counting Activity: paper with a corn shape drawn / printed on it, corn kernels

Veg faces / Placemat art: a selection of chopped vegetables that children may wish to try,

placemats printed similar to those available at https://www.superherofoodshq.org.au/, rice

cakes and dip

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Food Art: place paper in front of each child, with paint and vegetables in the middle of the

tables within easy reach. Let the children explore how they can use each vegetable to create

patterns and pictures. If you want a more structured experience you can demonstrate how

to make a certain picture (eg a lady bug, using a chopped potato). There are lots of guides

available for this type of art online.

Corn Counting Activity: Provide each child with a piece of paper with the shape of a corn cob

drawn on it. Ask them whether they recognise the picture, and get them to colour it in. You

can integrate a numeracy activity into this experience by decorating the corn with corn

kernels and getting children to count the kernels they’ve added to their corn.

Veg faces / Placemat art: use a selection of chopped up vegetables to decorate placemats or

create rice cake faces. Children may taste their creations if they wish, but if not the focus of

this experience is to get them familiar with touching different vegetables.

EXPLORING THE TEXTURE OF VEGETABLES

Exploring textures can be a fun way to introduce vegetables in a non-threatening manner to

children. With no pressure to eat the vegetable, many children become curious exploring the weird

and wonderful differences between each vegie.

What you will need:

All you’ll need for these activities is a selection of vegetables and herbs with a variety of

textures. The combinations are limitless!

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Focus on the texture of the outside of whole foods. Some examples are spiky rosemary, soft

basil leaves, smooth cucumber, bumpy cauliflower or broccoli. Ask children why they think

vegetables have different textured skins or outsides?

Compare the texture of vegetables when they are whole vs when they are chopped? For

example, a smooth cucumber can become moist and slippery when chopped up.

Compare textures of vegetables in raw and cooked forms. Do vegetables soften when

cooked? What happens to spinach leaves when we cook them?

EXTENSION: Mystery Bag Activity – using only the sense of touch describe the shape and texture of a

vegetable hidden inside a bag, and guess what the vegetable is.

Explain that there is a mystery in the bag (or pillow case works well).

Allow one child to place his or her hand in the bag. Ask him or her to describe the feel of the food.

Prompt the child with questions to describe the feel, like ‘Is it hard or soft?’ or ‘Is it round like a

ball?’, is it smooth or rough?’. As the child describes it, have the other children

guess what it is.

When the child has had a chance to feel the food, say ‘Mystery solved!’ Take

the food out of the bag. Let children tell you the name of the food. Ask them

simple questions about it like:

• Have you ever eaten this food before?

• If yes, what did it taste like?

• If no, would you like to try it sometime?

As time permits, repeat the activity with other vegetables. You may also wish to

follow up this activity with a tasting of the vegetables.

VEGETABLE SORTING

Simply handling vegetables can introduce children to unfamiliar vegetables. We know that touching

and exploring vegetables can make children more comfortable with trying to taste them. Activities

that involve sorting are a great way to get children to feel and touch vegetables. There are many

sorting activities. You can use either real or play vegetables.

What you will need:

a selection of real and\or play based vegetables. Make sure you select a range of vegetables

with different colours, sizes, weights and textures.

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

ask children to sort the vegetables by colour, then by size, then texture and then shape.

have discussions along the way by asking ‘which is the heaviest’, ‘is this one heavier than

that one’, ‘what shape is this one’, ‘which other vegetables are the same shape’ etc.

have children sort different vegetable seeds such as peas or beans. Bean seeds come in

different colours – purple, white and green so these could be a perfect seed for children to

sort into different colours.

The sense of smell tells us about our environment. We can smell good things like ‘tasty’ food, and

not so good things like dirty socks. The nose helps us to make sense of what's going on in the world

around us. Just as eyes give information by seeing and ears help out by hearing, the nose lets you

figure out what's happening by smelling.

Your nose lets you smell but it is also big part of why you are able to taste things. Most people just

think of the tongue when they think about taste. But you couldn't taste anything without some

help from the nose! The ability to smell and taste go together because aroma from foods allow us

to taste more fully.

Introduce the concept of smell to the children…

- What part of the body do we use to smell?

- Can you touch your nose? Can you wiggle your nose?

- Why words do we use to describe smells?

Encourage children to start thinking about their sense of smell. If you have a vegetable garden at the

service, then allowing children to touch, squeeze and smell the leaves and fruit of plants encourages

them to imagine the taste. They are more likely to try new vegetables and fruits. The sense of smell

allows children to “work-up” to the point of taste. Alternatively, you can put items with interesting

smells into individual bottles, get children to open the lid and with their eyes closed, try to guess the

smell. Select different scents like some fresh citrus juice, peppermint, onion, a hardboiled egg.

Getting familiar with the scents and tastes of new spices and foods

encourages children to be adventurous eaters. It builds their

curiosity about how foods are made and why they can taste

differently — like flavoring chicken with lemon or garlic. To support

children to grow up and appreciate a wide variety of food, it’s

important for them to become familiar with different types of

aromas. Have children smell different foods and explore the

language used to describe these smells. Get them to take a bite of

their lunch and think about how it tastes. Then get them to pinch

their nose and take another bite. Notice the difference?

Another fun way to explore smell could be to create a collage

poster with a picture of each child’s nose!

SMELL GUESSING GAME

A sense of smell gets stronger when it’s isolated, so this could be used as a fun guessing game with a

blindfold.

What you will need:

A blind fold

a range of vegetables and herbs such as;

o VEGIES: onion (careful not to get too close or the eyes will water!), garlic, shallots,

chives, ripe tomato, cucumber

o HERBS: any herbs would work well

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Once blindfolded, hold items up to children’s noses to smell. Ask them to describe the smell.

Do they like the smell, if so do they like it better than the previous one? Can they guess what

the smell is?

GROWING HERBS AND VEGETABLE POTS

What you will need:

Pots for each child or the bottom of milk cartons can work. Alternatively, you can grow

vegetables in larger pots that stay at the service

Various types of mint are great to plant in pots. You can find numerous varieties, such as

chocolate, plain mint, spearmint and lemon. Pick a leaf of each and see if the children can

describe what they are smelling and the differences between them.

Alternatively, tomatoes are great to grow as the leaves have a scent as do the tomatoes

themselves.

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Some vegetables also have fabulous smells e.g. explore the difference between the smell of

when you brush up against or touch the leaves of a tomato bush with the smell of the

tomato itself. Do they smell the same? Find words to describe them both.

Crush herbs between your fingers and get children to smell them.

EXTENSION: Stories about smells – try to find a children’s story about smells or create one

yourselves with the children. This could be an activity that is done over many weeks which

culminates in a beautiful book that can be used to explore the sense of smell by the educators for

years. The story could be about a child smelling foods in the shop and at home, and the children can

be smelling the foods while listening to the story.

Taste is a very important sense because it helps us determine the flavours of foods and other

substances. In fact, our ability to taste has historically been linked to our survival, as our sense of

taste gives us an indication of whether a food is safe to eat or is likely to be poisonous.

Most taste buds are on the tongue, but they are also found in other parts of the mouth. Humans

have approximately 10,000 taste buds, each of which has between 50 and 150 receptor cells.

However, children have about twice as many taste receptors as adults, which may account for why

children are often much pickier eaters than adults!

Introduce the concept of taste to the children…

- What part of the body do we use to taste?

- What happens if we pinch out nose and taste something?

- What are some ways to describe different tastes? (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, savoury (this is

known as unami!), spicy, bland)

Encourage children to explore their sense of taste. A fun way to start to learn about taste is to learn

about your tongue! Have children wash their hands, then sit or stand in front of a mirror and get

them to stick their tongue out. See how far they can stick their tongue out, can they move it in a

circle, up, down, left or right, how does it feel, what colour is it, can they see\feel the bumps on their

tongue (these are the taste buds!).

Then you are ready to introduce the concept of taste by talking to children each day at meal times,

the key is to encourage children to be mindful and take notice of the flavours. Start discussions by

getting children to describe different tastes of the foods from their lunchboxes or meals. This is a

great lead in to structured taste adventures!

EXPLORING DIFFERENT TASTES - raw vs cooked foods, sweet vs sour foods

There are many different tastes to explore. A great way to do this can be through foods that have

strong or distinctive flavours or textures, or exploring the difference between sweet and sour foods.

The difference cooking can make to taste can also be explored. It is fun to see how some plants

change when raw and cooked. Some vegetables change colour when cooked, such as purple beans

that revert to green when cooked. Cooking also changes the taste of some foods.

What you will need:

Raw vs Cooked - Vegetables that can be cooked such as carrots, celery, tomatoes, beans,

snow peas, peas

Sweet vs Sour – Sweet – consider juicy red capsicum, Sour\bitter – rocket, pickled cucumber

(as there aren’t many sour vegetables you may choose to use a lemon for this activity)

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Cook some common vegetables and place on to platters with the raw version of them. Ask

children to eat a raw item, and then to try the cooked version of the same vegetable.

Ask children to explore the cooked vegetables further such as has the colour changed, has

the texture changed, has the smell changed, does it look different?

Taste the difference between sweet and sour. Why does a lemon make my face scrunch up

and red capsicum makes me smile? Our taste receptors respond to five tastes, even though

we tend to largely preference salty and sweet. See if children can locate the sweet and sour

taste bud on their tongue. Bitter is at the back, sweet is in the middle, salty is on the tip and

sour is on the sides.

KIDS IN THE KITCHEN

There is no better way to entice excitement around tasting foods than if you have prepared or

cooked them yourself. Children love food preparation! It’s fun, and messy and fabulous! There are

any number of recipes that are suitable for younger children. We have suggested a Hummus

because the chickpeas are vegetables and you can also use other vegetables as dippers. With a little

bit of planning ahead you could plant Snow peas or Beans to use.

What you will need:

Hummus recipe - one can be found https://nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/health-

promotion/portfolio/hummus/. Ingredients and equipment can be found in the recipe

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Create opportunities for children to participate in basic food preparation. Select a recipe

that has a lot of vegetables. Have children handle the vegetables by chopping, grating,

peeling. Once the food is prepared, have children sit and share the meal.

A range of recipes can be found on the Northern New South Wales Recipes webpage

https://nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/health-promotion/healthy-eating-recipes/.

Simply have children top their own rice cake with avocado, tomato and lettuce. They will

love to eat a snack they have prepared on their own!

TASTING LESSON

Setting up a food taste test is a fun way to teach children about the sense of taste from the 5 senses.

What you will need:

a selection of different vegetables (3 different vegetables is a good number)

include at least one familiar vegetable

keep one of each type whole, and cut the rest into bit size pieces and put on share platters

Nutrition learning experience ideas:

Provide children with the opportunity to taste a variety of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables

(see below). Consider scheduling regular taste testing session as part of your educational

routines.

Have children sit at their tables in groups. Place one share platter of chopped vegetables for each

group of children. Ask children not to try the samples until told. Hold up one whole food. Ask if they

know its name. Help them name the vegetable as needed. Ask children to describe the colour and

shape of the vegetable. Let them touch it. Then, ask them to describe its texture.

Point children to the sample on their platter that comes from the whole food. As they taste it, ask

them to talk about the taste. Discuss things like, is it sweet, is it crunchy, is it juicy and whether they

enjoy it. Repeat with remaining vegetables.

Ask children to share why they liked certain foods more than others. Ask who tasted something new

and who discovered they liked something they didn’t think they would. Explain that not everyone

will like all foods, but it’s good to give new foods a try — you never know what you might like! Point

out that sometimes you need to try new foods more than once to get used to the taste and decide if

you like it. People’s tastes also change over time. Next year you might like a food that you didn’t like

today. Encourage children to tell their parents about the foods they tasted today.

After exploring each of the five senses individually, here are some nutrition learning experiences that put all of the senses together. Encourage the children to reflect on what senses they are using as you undertake these activities. Adopt a questioning position, challenging children to consider the importance of each sense. There is a lot of interesting research around the impact each sense has on an eating, and how they

work together to create an enjoyable eating experience. Did you know:

- SOUND: The “crunch” of biting into a crunchy food impacts our perceptions on how “fresh”

or “crisp” a food may be. The sound around us while eating also impacts our thoughts on a

given food. This is why many restaurants think carefully about the backing tracks they play.

- SMELL: It’s estimated that humans can smell from 1000-4000 smells that may be broadly

classified as floral, fruity, spicy, resin, burnt or putrid. Up to 95% of what we taste is based

on smell, which is why when you have a blocked nose, foods often taste bland.

- TOUCH: touch plays a large role in improvings a child’s willingness to eat vegetables and

fruit. Children who have an opportunity to feel and play with foods prior to tasting them are

more likely to taste the food when offered.

- SIGHT: with the rise of social media “visual hunger” or our neural, phsyiological and

behavioural reponse for food images is becoming increasingly common. Seeing healthy

images such as vegetables, along with increased exposure to these vegetables can increase

the likelihood of vegetable consumption.

- TASTE: on average it takes 8-10 offerings of a food for a child to like it, but sometimes it can

be in excess of 20! Continued exposure is key!

EXPLORING THE VEGETABLE RAINBOW!

Using a rainbow motif to explore vegetables is an all time favourite among many children. There are so many activities you can plan using each of the senses… Here are just a few to get you started.

The first place to start when linking vegetables to the rainbow is with colour! Start by asking children to identify some colours of a rainbow (you can prompt them by reading a book that features a rainbow).

- Can they think of vegetables from each colour group?

- Invite families to bring in veggies to create your very own Veggie Rainbow!

Use the sense of sight and touch to explore vegetables in a variety of forms. Children often make mistakes when identifying vegetables that have been chopped up. This is easily done, as chopping up vegetables often removes crucial elements children use to identify it, for example shape. This often causes apprehension when it comes to tasting veggies.

- Create a board to compare whole vegetables, sliced vegetables, vegetable skin and veggies chopped into bite size pieces.

- Children can look and feel patterns, textures and shapes, then taste the bite size portions.

Eat the rainbow - create a taste testing experience that allows children to “Eat the Rainbow” (we have included some ideas in the table below). You could eat the rainbow in one day, or build up to it, trialling one veg colour each week if you have some cautious eaters in your group. As an extension, challenge families to pack a rainbow in lunchboxes each day.

Red Purple/Blue Orange/Yellow Green Brown/White

Tomato Red capsicum Radishes

Beetroot Red cabbage Eggplant

Carrots Sweet potato Pumpkin Corn Squash

Spinach Asparagus Avocados Broccoli Peas Green beans Lettuce Cabbage Celery Cucumber Green capsicum

Cauliflower Brown pears Mushrooms Garlic Potatoes Onions Ginger Parsnips Turnip

For more “Eat the Rainbow” ideas visit the SA Health “Eat a Rainbow” webpage

https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/healthy+livi

ng/healthy+eating/healthy+eating+at+different+ages+and+stages+of+your+life/healthy+eating+for+

kids+and+teens/eat+a+rainbow+resources

EXPLORING VEGIES FROM PADDOCK TO PLATE

The ‘paddock to plate’ concept (or looking at foods from where they were grown, all the way

through to when they are eaten) is a great way to explore the foods we eat. It allows children to

consider the transformation food undergoes, from seed to crop to vegetable to the form in which

they eat it. Below are a few ideas on how you can use this concept in your service.

Encourage children to get outside and explore your gardens. Create some binoculars out of

toilet paper rolls, then go outside and become explorers, looking at colours, textures, bugs

and everything else your garden has to offer. Ask them to

think about the sounds they can hear, and the smells around

them (you may even wish to crush some herb leaves for

them to smells).

Experiment with seeds - chop some vegetables in half and

collect their seeds. Dry them, then let them sprout in to a

new plant. Tomatoes work great for this activity but basil or

lettuce work well too.

Cook meals using seasonal produce from the gardens.

Set up a Pretend Farmers’ Market - Transform your play

kitchen into a local vegetable farmers’ market. You could use

a combination of real, play or pictures of vegetables. Talk to

the children about how farmers grow these foods and then

sell them at the market. You can also plan a trip to your local

farmers’ market or community garden.

Transforming vegetables - create a nutrition learning

experience around potatoes (or pumpkin). Research how they grow and then provide the

children with an unwashed potato. They can then wash it, watch you cook it and once it’s

cooled, they can mash it! Talk about other ways we eat potato and how different each way

of eating potato is (mashed, roasted, fries, potato chips).

Taste veggies straight from the garden! If you have a vegetable garden, the point of harvest

and the opportunity to taste what you have grown is an exciting one for children. These

tasting sessions are highly anticipated if children have been involved in the process to this

point, caring for the plants, watching and waiting.

The number one thing parents can do at home to encourage their children to eat vegetables (or any

food for that matter) is to regularly offer their child vegetables in a pressure free environment. On

average it takes 8-10 offerings for a child to accept a given food. It is often useful to focus on a

specific vegetable, rather than introducing multiple new (or disliked) vegies at one time.

Interestingly, once a child accepts or “likes” a vegetable, this ongoing exposure isn’t as important to

maintain intake.

Below are a few activities you can suggest to parents so they can continue to foster Veg Explorers at

home. These are also detailed as flyers on the following pages. They are available for download at

https://nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/health-promotion/files/2019/01/Be-a-Veg-Explorer-Parent-

Flyer.pdf

Start Simple: encourage families to think about some of the everyday opportunities they can

create to allow children to interact with vegetables as part of their daily routine. This may be

as simple as asking them to wash the vegies in preparation for dinner.

Get Growing: families may wish to start a vegetable garden (or herb pot). They can take their

child to the local nursery, chat to the owner and together select some seedlings to grow.

Plant and tend to their garden regularly and talk to their child the importance of sunlight and

water to help their garden grow.

Market Adventures: encourage families to explore the local markets in your area – these

may include farmer’s markets, green grocer or the supermarket.

Play the tasting game: families can pick a target vegetable and commit to playing the tasting

game with it every day for 2 weeks. Each day the target vegetable is offered to the child –

they are under no pressure to try it, but if they do they get to colour in a spot on their

reward chart. This game is all about exposing children to a new or disliked vegetable and

giving them ongoing opportunities to become familiar with it.

Eat the Rainbow: as an extension to the Exploring the Vegie Rainbow activity you complete

at your service, challenge the families to eat a rainbow at home. Some ideas may include

rainbow dinners, rainbow lunchboxes or even a rainbow snack platter!

Exploring Vegetables with the Five Senses

DID YOU KNOW: Only about 1 in 20 children eat enough vegetables!

This year we are taking time to become “Veg Explorer’s” and use our 5 senses to discover everything

we can about vegetables! The children are using their eyes to notice colours and patterns of

vegetables; using their ears to hear the sounds of our gardens and the sounds they can make by

tapping or crunching different vegetables, they are using touch to explore different textures and also

using different vegetables to create craft, they are using their noses to smell herbs and strong

smelling vegies like tomatoes, and they are getting used to tasting new vegetables through taste

testing experiences and cooking.

We’d love you to support us by becoming a Veg Exploring family. Here’s a few ideas we think you

might enjoy trying at home.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Start Simple: think about creating opportunities every day to allow your child to experience

vegetables as part of their daily routine. This may be as simple as asking them to wash the

vegies in preparation for dinner. We know the more children handle vegetables, the more

likely they are to eat them!

Get Growing: start a vegetable garden (or herb pot). It may be as easy as planting seeds from

vegetables you already have like tomatoes or pumpkin. Or you could take your child to the

local nursery, and together select some seedlings. Plant and tend to your garden regularly

and talk to your child about the importance of sunlight and water to help their garden grow.

Market Adventures: explore local markets with your family. These may include farmer’s

markets, the green grocer or supermarket.

Eat the Rainbow: Eating the rainbow can be so much fun. Some ideas may include rainbow

dinners, rainbow lunchboxes or even a rainbow snack platter! Perhaps eating a different

colour of the rainbow each day of the week may be an easier option.

Make eating vegies fun: try playing the Tasting Game (see over page). When tested, this

simple game was successful at getting children to taste vegetables they otherwise would not.

You may like to try them cooked and raw. And don’t forget to explore the vegie with them,

touch it, smell it and just have fun with it!

Let’s Play the Tasting Game!

The number one way to get your children to eat more vegetables is to stick with it. It can take at

least 8-10 offerings of a vegetable before a child will try it, but each time you offer it they will

become more comfortable with it… they may look at it, smell it and feel it all before they are ready

to taste it. This tasting game is a great way to get children used to trying vegetables. For the best

results, try to play it every day with the same vegetable for a fortnight.

HOW TO PLAY:

Choose a vegetable to taste with your child.

Explain to your child that the two of you are going to play the Tasting Game, and that they

will be offered a small piece of the vegetable to try. Explain that there is no pressure for them

to eat it, however if they try it they can colour in a part of their progress chart.

Offer them a very small piece of the vegetable you have decided on (this game should be

played outside meal times). Make sure you have a taste as well!

If they try the vegetable, they can colour in one square in that row on their progress chart

until they reach the star (you could offer them a sticker to place in each square if you

prefer).

Repeat this process every day for 14 days.

This technique may be repeated with other vegetables.

The key to having success with this game is offering the same vegetable consistently over a period of

time. Familiarity is key in children liking foods – they often like what they know! Be persistent but

also patient with your child, as some take longer than others to become familiar with new foods.

Complete the progress chart with your children. There is plenty of space for you to

practice eating different vegetables across the year.

Vegetable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Carrot

Child Tastings

Parent Tastings

Write the chosen vegetable in the first column, then have your child colour in a box across the row each time they

taste it to reach the star!