Teaching children about healthy eating and dental health is vital for their physical and mental wellbeing. "Playing with your food" by creating food art is a great way to introduce healthy foods in a fun and interactive way.
Interactive Learning Resources
Nutrition Interactive Notebook
This Nutrition Interactive Notebook includes patterns and worksheets for learning about nutrition, focusing on the five food groups of MyPlate: Vegetables, Fruits, Grains, Protein, and Dairy. The notebook provides templates for xeroxing onto construction paper.
Eating Healthy Fact Booklet
An engaging resource to introduce healthy eating, the fact booklet includes hands-on activities about different types of food and a research form. It is designed for kindergarten, first, and struggling second graders. Included is a black and white informational book about eating healthy.
Healthy Eating Writing Prompt and Craft
Embed a healthy eating craft with an informative writing unit using this fun eating healthy informative writing prompt so students can learn all about healthy eating. This differentiated graphic organizer tops off their writing with a fun healthy eating craft that doubles as an adorable favorite food bulletin board.
Creative Craft Activities
Fruits & Vegetables Crown Craft
Make learning about fruits and vegetables fun with this printable Fruits & Vegetables Crown Craft. This black & white pack includes 10 creative crown designs that feature a variety of healthy foods-perfect for PreK-2nd grade students learning about nutrition, healthy eating, or food groups.
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Cheerful Carrot Headband Craft
Brighten your classroom with this adorable Cheerful Carrot Headband Craft. It’s an ideal hands-on activity for teaching about vegetables, nutrition, farm life, or healthy habits.
Tomato Vegetable Headband Craft
Bring a burst of color, creativity, and veggie fun into your classroom or home with this Tomato Vegetable Headband Craft! This Printable Paper Crown Coloring Activity is perfect for teaching kids about healthy eating, farm-to-table lessons, nutrition week, or garden themes.
Healthy Eating Paper Bag Puppet Craft
Learning about healthy eating just got even more fun with this paper bag puppet and fun writing craft. Each craft activity lets students draw a picture of healthy food options. Students can draw or write their favorite healthy foods in their puppet's lunchbox, and then once they have made their craft they can use it to tell their friends and family about healthy eating.
Mango Puppet Craft
Bring the sweetness of fruit into your classroom with this Mango Puppet Craft! Students transform a simple paper bag into a fun, smiling mango puppet, perfect for healthy eating lessons, fruit units, dramatic play, and tropical themes. The download includes ready-to-print PDF templates plus transparent PNG files for digital projects in Google Slides.
Thanksgiving Healthy Food Plate Craft
In this craft activity, little learners will choose from a variety of options to create their own healthy food plate for Thanksgiving. This can also be used as a Thanksgiving placemat. This activity can also extend to a discussion about healthy eating.
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Alphabet Related Fruits & Vegetables Craft Set
You can make the learning experience more engaging by complimenting your lessons with this craft set. Kids can practice their skills with cut and paste version. You can also use tracing and coloring versions for different abilities and practices.
Strawberry Life Cycle Foldable Activity
Explore the life cycle of a strawberry with this fun, foldable sequencing activity. A cross between a worksheet and a summer craft, children learn about the strawberry life cycle in a hands-on way, with differentiated options if required.
Tomato Plant Life Cycle Activity
Help your students understand and review the life cycle of a tomato plant with this differentiated sequencing activity. This resource is a printable PDF with cut-and-paste options. Children put the life cycle stages from tomato seed to ripe fruit in order on their template. They then cut and fold.
Watermelon Plant Life Cycle Craft
Help your students understand and review the life cycle of a watermelon plant with this differentiated cut-and-paste sequencing craft. Children put the life cycle stages from watermelon seed to fruit in order on their template. They then cut and fold.
Vegetable Study Craft
As you explore farm fresh foods, healthy eating habits, the food pyramid, and a balanced diet, have a vegetable study! You might choose to do a taste test and a create one vegetable craft per day. OR you might choose to have students craft their favorite fruit to craft after your vegetable exploration.
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Pumpkin Puppet Craft
Celebrate autumn, Halloween, and harvest season with this Pumpkin Puppet Craft! Students transform a simple paper bag into a fun, smiling pumpkin puppet, perfect for fall, farm, or Halloween-themed lessons, dramatic play, and storytelling.
Food Art Ideas
Food Art as a Fun Way to Introduce Healthy Foods
Food art is a great way to introduce healthy foods in a fun and interactive way. Think fruit and vegetable turkeys for Thanksgiving, fruit trays in the shape of a rainbow or balloons made out of grapes. Host a school-wide “Top Chef Food Art Competition.” Ask school nutrition staff to use food art when displaying the fruits or vegetables of the day.
Food Art Examples
The bear is made from a PB&J sandwich but you can mix up the filling and try using different fruits and vegetables for the bear’s facial features. Try cutting shapes from cheese to bring your food art to life! This rocket ship is filled with veggies, served with a side of starry sauce to dip. Cauliflower is perfect for the blast off, and we used a mushroom cap for the moon. Pretzels and grapes are a yummy pairing. This food art is great for talking about the different parts of the tree while you eat: trunk, branches, and leaves. These flowers pack in lots of fruits and veggies. The stems are made from cucumber and the leaves from spinach. The flowers you can get creative with and let your little ones come up with their own fruity flower combination. This food art goes above and beyond! We created four stages of metamorphosis with food!
Healthy Recipes to Cook with Kids
Homemade baked muesli can be a really nice recipe to prepare with them, too. Kids love colorful popcorn, but the kinds you find at the supermarket are usually made with artificial additives. Make sure you have an apron ready! Pop the popcorn with a high-quality oil, like extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil. Use a spray bottle to color the popcorn. Kids will have a ton of fun putting different pancake pieces together. They can create animal shapes, using pancakes as the body and fruits as toppings to add details. Some decoration options are: strawberries for nose, banana slices for the eyes, and blueberries or chocolate chips for the center of the eyes. You can use vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower to simulate trees or bushes, so the animals can be placed in their natural environment.
Seasonal Fruit Art
You can use different fruits to celebrate the changing of the season. This way, they will learn about seasonal fruit. If it’s strawberry season, you’re in luck - these little beauties give us a lot to play around with, with their bright red color and their delicious flavor. All you need are a few strawberries, some melted chocolate, and blueberries for the head. Grapes, pomegranate, and passion fruit are also playful ingredients kids can use to decorate different creations. For instance, they could use grapes to simulate a nose, pomegranate for the freckles, and half passion fruit as a surprised mouth.
Fruit Lollipops
These simple, delicious, and healthy lollipops are one food craft that’s sure to be a favorite of both parents and children alike! Not to mention, they’re so much fun to make. All you need are: muesli, lollipop sticks, a banana, and tahini or peanut butter.
Muesli Art
Kids can decorate a breakfast bowl by recreating an autumn landscape, where the fallen leaves are made of muesli and raisins represent tree trunks. Let their imagination run free to create amazing compositions.
Colorful Popcorn
Kids love colorful popcorn, but the kinds you find at the supermarket are usually made with artificial additives. Make sure you have an apron ready! Pop the popcorn with a high-quality oil, like extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil. At the same time, prepare a beet juice for the coloring. The juice is easy to make (you can use a blender or do it manually): grate the beet and then squeeze the shavings in your fist to extract the pink liquid. Use a spray bottle to color the popcorn.
Pancake Art
Kids will have a ton of fun putting different pancake pieces together. They can create animal shapes, using pancakes as the body and fruits as toppings to add details. Some decoration options are: strawberries for nose, banana slices for the eyes, and blueberries or chocolate chips for the center of the eyes. You can use vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower to simulate trees or bushes, so the animals can be placed in their natural environment.
Food Education Through Puppets
Esta divertida actividad de alimentación saludable para niños combina manualidades creativas y teatro interactivo con títeres para enseñarles los beneficios de las verduras. A través de un espectáculo de títeres en español, los niños descubrirán el poder de los supervegetales como el brócoli, la zanahoria y el tomate. Los niños crearán sus propios títeres de papel y darán vida a los personajes, haciendo que aprender sobre nutrición para niños sea tanto divertido como educativo. Ideal para introducir hábitos alimenticios saludables de forma lúdica.
Activities at Brighten Academy Preschool
When it comes to eating healthy foods they did a number of great activities to learn all about how to eat healthy at Brighten Academy Preschool in Clovis, California! This bulletin board featured, "Nibbling Nick," and has healthy foods on one side of the board and unhealthy foods on the other so that students can see which kinds of items are good for us and which are not the best choice. This craft has students take pictures of healthful food they like to eat when they are hungry and then paste the images into a picture of a dinner-plate. The preschoolers loved learning about the food pyramid and then making their own of the kinds of foods they thought belonged on each level. One of the most important parts of a well-balanced diet is eating lots of fruits and vegetables! With this in mind the students did a number of crafts where they created their own fruits and veggies out of craft paper, paint, and multi-media objects such as beads. Plus, they painted and colored-in images of healthy fruits and vegetables in addition to making smiling ones as a craft they gave names to!
STEM, Arts, and Deliciousness: I'm the Chef Too!
In a world increasingly dominated by screens, finding engaging, enriching activities that truly captivate young minds can feel like a quest. Enter the delightful world of fun food crafts for kids. These aren't just about making snacks; they are dynamic, multi-sensory experiences that blend the joy of creation with the satisfaction of a tasty treat. From building edible structures to experimenting with colorful concoctions, food crafts offer a unique blend of art, science, and plain old fun.
Benefits of Food Crafts
Food crafts engage children in a way that traditional crafts often cannot, tapping into multiple senses and offering an immediate, delicious reward for their efforts. From the moment children touch the smooth dough, smell the sweet spices, or observe colors blending, their senses are fully engaged. This multi-sensory input is crucial for early brain development. Kneading bread, crumbling cookies, or shaping fruit allows children to explore textures, temperatures, and consistencies, building a richer understanding of the world around them. Food is an incredible medium for artistic expression. Children can design edible landscapes, sculpt characters from dough or fruit, or paint with food coloring on cookies. This allows them to translate their imaginative ideas into tangible (and tasty!) forms. There’s no right or wrong way to decorate a cupcake or arrange fruit slices; the focus is entirely on personal creativity. Many food crafts require precise movements that are excellent for developing fine motor skills. Activities like sprinkling decorations, cutting shapes with cookie cutters, peeling fruit, spreading frosting, or even threading cereal onto a string for a snack necklace all contribute to hand-eye coordination, dexterity, and finger strength. Following a recipe, even a simple one, involves a sequence of steps that requires children to think critically and solve problems. What happens if we add too much liquid? How can we make this shape hold together? How do we measure half a cup? They learn to adapt, troubleshoot, and understand cause and effect. Baking requires patience - waiting for dough to rise, cookies to bake, or frosting to set. Food crafts teach children that good things come to those who wait, reinforcing the value of persistence. Even if a first attempt doesn't go as planned, the process encourages them to try again, fostering resilience and a growth mindset. Children observe physical changes (melting chocolate, freezing water), chemical reactions (baking soda and vinegar bubbling), and states of matter (solids, liquids, gases). They learn about density when layering liquids for a colorful drink or about the properties of yeast when bread dough rises. Following verbal instructions, explaining steps to an adult, or discussing their creative choices helps children develop their vocabulary and communication skills. There’s immense pride in creating something with your own hands, especially when that creation is edible and delicious! Children gain a powerful sense of accomplishment when they see their finished food craft, knowing they contributed to making it. Food crafts provide a shared activity where parents, guardians, and children can work together, laugh, and connect. These moments spent collaborating in the kitchen become precious memories that last a lifetime, fostering stronger relationships and a sense of togetherness. For many children, the appeal of "crafting" can make even healthy foods more enticing. When kids are involved in preparing and designing their meals or snacks, they are often more willing to try new ingredients. Turning fruits and vegetables into fun shapes or characters can transform a dreaded healthy snack into an exciting edible adventure.
Tips for Embarking on Food Craft Adventures
Clean Hands & Surfaces: Before starting, ensure everyone washes their hands thoroughly. Clean and sanitize all countertops, utensils, and bowls. Age-Appropriate Tools: Provide children with tools that are safe and easy for them to handle. Use blunt plastic knives for younger kids, and supervise closely if using sharper utensils for older ones. Gather All Ingredients & Tools: Before you begin, lay out all your ingredients, measuring cups, spoons, bowls, and any specific crafting tools (like cookie cutters or decorating bags). Read the Recipe/Instructions: Go through the steps together with your child beforehand. It's Part of the Fun (and Learning!): Food crafts can get messy, and that's perfectly okay! Lay down newspaper, a large plastic mat, or a tablecloth to protect your surfaces. Involve Kids in Cleanup: Teach responsibility by having children help with wiping down surfaces, putting away ingredients, and washing dishes. Focus on the Process, Not Perfection: The goal isn't to create a perfectly symmetrical or professional-looking edible masterpiece. It's about the joy of creating, the learning that happens along the way, and the shared experience. Keep it Playful: If a child gets frustrated, offer encouragement or suggest a simpler task. From Planning to Clean-Up: Let children choose the recipe (from a few approved options), help gather ingredients from the pantry, measure, mix, decorate, and even help with the cleanup. Assign Age-Appropriate Tasks: A toddler can stir, a preschooler can pour pre-measured ingredients, and an older child can read instructions or use a whisk. Allergies & Preferences: Be mindful of any food allergies or dietary restrictions within your family or for anyone who might be sharing the food craft. Healthy Choices: While many food crafts involve sweet treats, you can also incorporate healthy options like fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. What You Likely Already Have: You don't need fancy equipment.
No-Bake Food Craft Ideas
These crafts are perfect for when you need a fast, engaging activity or want to avoid using the oven.
Edible Art Plates (Fruit & Veggie Mosaics)
Provide a selection of colorful fruits and vegetables (berries, melon cubes, cucumber slices, bell pepper strips, carrot sticks) and let children arrange them on a plate to create pictures, patterns, or scenes. This is wonderful for discussing colors, shapes, and the importance of healthy eating.
Snack Necklaces/Bracelets
Offer a variety of cereals with holes (O-shaped cereals), small pretzels, and dried fruit (like apple rings or dried cranberries with holes). Give children a piece of kitchen twine or licorice string and let them thread the items to create wearable, edible jewelry.
Layered Parfaits/Cups
Using clear cups, let kids layer yogurt, granola, fresh fruit, and perhaps a drizzle of honey or a sprinkle of mini chocolate chips.
Peanut Butter & Cracker Creations
Graham crackers or other flat crackers provide a perfect base for edible building. Spread peanut butter (or cream cheese/hummus for allergies) as "glue." Children can then use pretzel sticks, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, or small candies to build mini houses, animals, or abstract sculptures. This is a great way to introduce basic engineering and imaginative play.
Candy Sushi
A sweet take on a popular dish! Use Rice Krispie treats as the "rice" base. Flatten them and top with gummy worms, Swedish fish, fruit roll-ups (cut into strips for "seaweed"), and other colorful candies.
"Paint Pots" with Yogurt/Pudding
Divide vanilla yogurt or pudding into small cups. Add a few drops of primary food coloring to each cup. Give children a paintbrush (clean, food-safe) or a spoon and let them "paint" on a large, flat cookie, graham cracker, or even a slice of toast.
Baking and Decorating Food Crafts
Cookie Decorating: Bake a batch of simple sugar cookies (or use store-bought ones) in various shapes. Provide frosting, sprinkles, candies, and food coloring. Children can practice their fine motor skills by piping frosting, placing sprinkles, and creating intricate designs.
Cupcake Creations: Cupcakes are a blank canvas! Bake or buy plain cupcakes and let kids go wild with frosting, edible glitter, mini candies, and themed toppers. Think safari animal cupcakes made with cookies and pretzels, or candy flower toppers.
Rice Krispie Treat Sculptures: Beyond simple squares, Rice Krispie treats are incredibly versatile for molding. Once cooled slightly but still pliable, children can shape them into anything from "Pineapples" and "Flamingos" to "Monster" shapes. They can use cookie cutters or hand-mold, then decorate with frosting, candy melts, and sprinkles.
Mini Pizzas/Calzones: Provide pre-made dough (store-bought pizza dough or even English muffins/bagels as bases). Let children spread sauce, sprinkle cheese, and arrange their favorite toppings. This teaches about layering, fractions (dividing the pizza), and basic culinary skills.
Science-Based Food Activities
Erupting Volcano Cakes: By combining baking soda (a base) with an acid like vinegar or lemon juice, you can create a dramatic, foamy eruption. Our Erupting Volcano Cakes are a fantastic way to see this in action, making chemistry exciting and edible.
Edible Slime/Playdough: There are many recipes for edible slime using ingredients like marshmallows, cornstarch, or sweetened condensed milk. Children can explore the properties of non-Newtonian fluids (substances that act as both liquid and solid) and experiment with different textures.
Galaxy Donuts: Creating a "galaxy" effect on donuts using food coloring and glazes is not only artistic but can spark conversations about astronomy. Our Galaxy Donut Kit is perfect for this, allowing children to learn about planets, stars, and the vastness of space as they decorate their cosmic treats.
Floating M&Ms/Skittles: Place colorful candies in a shallow dish of water. As the candy coating dissolves, the colors will spread and mix, creating beautiful patterns. This demonstrates the concepts of dissolving, diffusion, and even basic chromatography.
Homemade Butter/Ice Cream in a Bag: These simple experiments show physical changes. By shaking heavy cream in a sealed bag, children can observe it transform into butter, learning about emulsions and fat separation.
Artistic Food Activities
Painted Toast: A simple yet effective canvas! Mix a few drops of food coloring with a tiny bit of milk or water to create "paints." Give children a clean paintbrush and let them paint designs on slices of bread. Toast the bread lightly afterwards to set the colors.
Watercolor Cookies: After baking plain sugar cookies, use diluted food coloring (or gel food coloring mixed with a tiny bit of clear vanilla extract) to create a watercolor effect.