Hello! I am in a planning mood today and I have stolen an idea from one of my friends Rachelle. She is helping her brother get organised and part of this project is menu planning - he has two children and I was thinking about how to involve the kids in menu planning. This is an adaptation of a method of exploring food that I have used with Rainbows, Brownies and Guides (girls form 5 years old to 14 years old) so I hope this is useful to you if you have kids or if you have kids coming to stay or visit you and they need feeding! This is also a fun way to plan as an adult - especially if, like me you can't draw for toffee and your banana split looks like a diagram of sedimentary layers... Oops!
I used the sheet that Eliza made for us, (which you can download here in in four different colours) and drew in the spaces instead of writing... nice and easy! I then annotated it so that you knew what I was trying to draw! This is based on one of the sheets that one of my Brownies drew me before our last pack holiday - and yes, she did ask for kiwi fruits for lunch! With older children they will be able to annotate it independently but younger kids will enjoy drawing in the shapes and then you can annotate it with them.
TOP TIP! Never try and guess what a drawing is, always ask!
Obviously kids don't worry about what is on special or what needs used up, but these spaces might be handy for asking kids to elaborate on their requests, what do they want on their spaghetti, for example? I might chance my luck and ask Eliza to design a special kids one if anyone thinks it would be handy! Please do let me know!
So there we are, how to ask kids what they want to eat and to get them started on their journey interacting with food... makes me wish I had a kid to practice on, anyone got one I can borrow to add to my mini focus group?
One last thing to note that this exercise can literally open a can of worms so if there are any restrictions on what you want from your kids then be sure to set them out at the start. Ask them for their favourite fruit and veg that week, and maybe limit the number of 'treats' they can choose, or explain that you're having a guest for tea one night and they don't eat a particular food - challenge them! It amazed me how much thought some 5 and 6 year old put into this exercise - don't underestimate them but equally try and guide them away from drawing pictures of all the sweets and biscuits that they love! 
Awesome idea to get kids more interested in the foods they eat - and give them the ability to choose.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned rainbows in a different context, but what about getting them to choose a rainbow of foods - my 2 1/2 year old would have so much fun doing this, and it teaches them that the more colours on their plate, the better it is for them!
The only hurdle then, is getting them to actually eat it lol!