Fruit & Vegetable Activities for Kids

Edible Crafts

Create colorful crafts that double as healthy snacks. Animals, flowers and other shapes can be made out of canned fruit halves, melon balls, carrot and celery sticks, berries and pineapple slices cut into shapes. Do the cutting ahead of time for smaller kids, or let older kids made their own shapes with metal cookie cutters. Use dried fruits and vegetables to create sculptures using peanut or soy butter for mortar.

Use paper, foam or cardboard to make fruit- and vegetable-themed crafts for display. Cut construction paper into fruit and vegetable shapes and have kids glue them to a paper basket or cornucopia; paint foam balls to look like oranges and apples, cover with glitter and other embellishments and stick them on top of bamboo skewers; or make smiling fruit and veggie masks from paper plates with eye holes.

Many traditional nursery rhymes are about fruits and vegetables. Pick your favorite ones, such as "Peter Piper," and sing, with an emphasis on the type of produce mentioned in the song and the different ways people can eat them. Make recipes based on the songs. After learning the words to "Peter Pumpkin Eater," make pumpkin muffins or roasted pumpkin seeds. Also look for more modern songs about eating fruits and vegetables from popular children's programs and CDs.

Some classic games, like "hot potato," are already produce-related but almost any game can be turned into a fruit or vegetable activity. Use dried apricots and plums to play checkers, and eat the pieces you win. Or come up with a whole new game, like "Veggieland," that the kids design and decorate on cardboard, create rules for and play, with dried fruits or vegetables as playing pieces and dried or fresh fruit as prizes.