Healthy eating games & activities
Games and activities are a great way to teach children about food in a fun and exciting way. Play-based learning helps support children’s development across many areas such as physical, social, emotional and intellectual.
Food related games and activities are also a great way to expose children to new and non-preferred foods in a fun way, especially for fussy eaters or children who are hesitant about trying new foods. Food related games are a great way to introduce new foods to children away from a meal or snack time.
Create a fruit and vegetable person
Aim
To help children learn about new foods, we can give them opportunities to explore and learn about foods in a playful way, away from mealtimes without the pressure to eat them.
This activity allows children to learn about different fruits and vegetables, what they look like, what they feel like and show their creativity.
What you’ll need
- A range of different fruits and vegetables
- Plate
- Knife – child safe ones if allowing children to cut in this activity
What to do
- Chop fruits and vegetables into different shapes that can be used as facial or body parts.
- Demonstrate to the children how to use the food items to create a person on their plate.
- Allow children to choose which fruits and/or vegetables they would like to use and allow them to use their creativity to create a person or face.
Tips!
If you are offering corn fritters for lunch, and they are making the face on the fritter! The opportunities are endless!
Children can be offered their vegetable person for morning or afternoon tea, but remember that we don’t want to be making any comments or placing any pressure on them to eat the food. Even if they just play with the foods or watch other children make them, if they leave the activity feeling good, it is still considered great exposure!
Create a fruit and veggie poster or placemat
Aim
This activity encourages children to explore different fruits and vegetables through art and promotes creativity.
What you’ll need
- A3 paper
- Pencils or crayons
- Pictures of fruits and vegetables
- Glue
- Laminator (optional)
What to do
- Each child gets a piece of A3 paper to create their own poster or placemat. They can use their creativity to draw their favourites, create a rainbow of different coloured fruits and vegetables or draw a story about fruits and vegetables.
- Younger children can be provided with pictures of fruit and vegetables that they can stick on their paper.
- Once the poster is completed, they can be laminated to use as placemats at mealtimes or as displays in the classroom.
Food cupboard
Aim
Allow children time for creative play with pretend foods. They can use their creativity to cook pretend meals or learn about new foods through pictures and toys.
What you’ll need
There are a few ways you can do this.
- You can make a “food cupboard” out of a large piece of cardboard by folding in both side edges to form doors. On the inside you can draw shelves and place cut outs of food pictures using Velcro patches or blu-tac.
- You could also have a real shelf in your room with toy foods.
What to do
- Ask the children what foods they think should be included in the ‘Food cupboard’.
- Encourage children to use their imagination and enjoy free play in the ‘Food cupboard’.
- Allow children to organise the foods and stack the shelves.
- Children can also take the foods out of the shelf to prepare imaginary meals.
Sing a song about food and nutrition
Aim
Singing songs can be a fun way to talk about different foods with children. You can find some songs with nutrition messages too.
What you’ll need
A food or nutrition related song. Try these fun food songs from Australian performers:
- Watermelon by Justine Clarke
- Fruit salad or Hot potato by The Wiggles
- Wash your face in orange juice by Peter Combe.
You can search ‘fun food songs for children’ on the internet for more ideas.
What to do
Sing along and have fun!
Foody incursions
Aim
To teach children about where food comes from and have an opportunity to engage with different foods.
What you’ll need
- Nutrition incursion provider such as an animal farm and local museum initiatives.
What to do
- Try to have a clear objective of the incursion in mind, something you would like the children to gain from the experience that is age appropriate.
- You can also follow up the incursion with an activity that builds on the children’s learning such as class discussions, drawing pictures or tasting foods relating to the incursion topic. For example, having a visit from an animal farm and then discussing all about eggs.
The fruit and veggie guessing bag
Aim
Increase children’s recognition and awareness of different fruit and vegetables.
What you’ll need
- A handful of different fruit and/or vegetables (they can be real or toy)
- A bag or pillow slip
What to do
- Place fruit and/or vegetables inside bag or pillow slip.
- Ask children to feel inside the bag and guess which fruit and/or vegetables are in there.
- If using real fruit and vegetables, you can also place a fruit or vegetable from the bag in their hands then ask them to guess what the fruit or vegetable is. They may feel comfortable to smell or event taste it!
Snap
Aim
This activity encourages children to become familiar with different foods. This activity also teaches children to take turns and develop attention, concentration and quick reflexes by being the first to call out matching pairs.
What you’ll need
- Laminated pictures of foods from the five food groups (you’ll need two copies of each image).
What to do
- Children take half the cards each, but don’t look at their cards. They take turns placing the cards down in a pile, face up.
- When the cards match, the children need to call out the name of the matching food. The player who calls out the correct food match first takes the pair and the game continues.
- The winner of the game is the one with the most pairs.
For more support and inspiration have a look at:
Theme tasting day
Aim
To teach children about the wide variety of foods there are and allow them to explore new foods of different colours, textures, tastes.
What you’ll need
Pick a food theme for the day and have activities and discussions about this food.
- Bring in a variety of your theme food.
- For an ‘apple day’ you could include apples, red apples, dried apples, pureed apple.
- For a ‘tomato day’ and include a cherry tomato, large tomato, yellow tomato, green tomato, and crushed tomatoes.
What to do
- Set up an exploring table with the foods and allow children to explore the different foods, by looking at, touching and smelling.
- You can offer some cut-up pieces of the foods to allow children a piece to taste if they wish. Keep in mind that this activity might not suit all children and we don’t want to pressure any children to try food if they are not ready.
- Discuss with the children the differences or similarities between the different varieties of the foods and what they taste, smell and/or feel like.
Tip!
We know that there could be extra costs associated with food activities, so you could consider including this as part of a meal or snack time or even use pictures of foods!
Planting a herb or veggie garden
Aim
Having a veggie or herb garden at your centre is a great way to teach children about where food comes from and how it grows. Children can learn new skills, have fun, play and develop self-confidence by spending time in the garden tending to plants and growing their own food.
What you’ll need
- A place to plant veggies and/or herbs such as pots, planter boxes, garden patches in the yard.
- Seeds or plants ready to plant.
- Gardening tools: gloves, shovel, watering can
What to do
- Pick where and how you’ll establish a vegetable or herb garden – will you have a planter box, or a pot? Don’t worry if you are short on space, most herbs can be maintained just along a windowsill in small containers!
- Plant seeds or plants into designated area and follow care instructions about soil or fertilisers, watering and sunlight requirements.
Tips!
Some easy to grow edible plants include tomatoes, peas, beans, snow peas and herbs.
For more support and inspiration have a look at:
Learning about food in different cultures
Aim
To teach children about different cultural foods. It may be an opportunity for them to learn about new foods that they haven’t seen or heard of before. This is a fun way to teach children about cooking as well as different cultures and cuisines. This activity can also highlight that all foods can be eaten at any time of the day. For example, in some cultures, they will eat rice at breakfast.
What you’ll need
There a few ways you can do this activity and perhaps run a few different activities throughout the day or week in your centre. See below the examples of what you can do and what you will need.
Different examples of what to do
Choose a culture and relevant dish of foods to discuss, draw or cook. For example:
- Japan and sushi
- Ethiopian and injera
- Italian and pizza
Have children draw or cut out pictures of foods from different cultures, you would need: pencils, crayons, textas and/or picture cut outs.
Cook a cultural dish with the class, you will need to pick a recipe and the foods and equipment required to make a recipe.
Books and posters
Aim
Create ongoing discussions about food using books and stories. You can also display posters about different foods and drinks around the room. Have a look at the following suggestions.
Books:
- I’m Having a Rainbow for Dinner, Author: NAQ Nutrition
- We’re Growing a Rainbow, Author: NAQ Nutrition Australia
- Jasper McFlea would not eat his tea, Author: Lee Fox, Mitch Vane
- Cool as a Cucumber, Author: Sally Smallwood
- I Can Eat a Rainbow, Author: Annabel Karmel
- Eating the Alphabet, Author: Lois Ehlert
- Oliver’s Vegetables, Author: Vivian French
- Are You Eating Something Green? Author: Ryan Sias
- I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, Author: Lauren Child
- Monsters don’t eat broccoli, Author: Jean Barbara Hicks
- Beautiful Bananas, Author: Elizabeth Laird
- Rainbow plate, Author: Dr Preeya Alexander
- What We Eat, Author: Jennifer Cooper-Trent
- Off to the market, Author: Alice Oeher
Posters:
You can display posters of all kinds of foods from the five food groups, such as fruits and vegetables. Some suggestions:
For more information please phone 1300 22 52 88 or email heas@nnf.org.au
Except where otherwise indicated, the images in this document show models and illustrative settings only, and do not necessarily depict actual services, facilities or recipients of services. This document may contain images of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In this document, ‘Aboriginal’ refers to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. ‘Indigenous’ or ‘Koori/Koorie’ is retained when part of the title of a report, program or quotation. Copyright © State of Victoria 2016
Written and reviewed by dietitians and nutritionists at National Nutrition Foundation, with support from the Victorian Government.
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The Healthy Eating Advisory Service is delivered by experienced nutritionists and dietitians at National Nutrition Foundation, with support from the Victorian Government.
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