Painting with Veggies

Lately I have been making more of an effort to do crafts with my kids that have an academic aspect to them. I think that when you involve learning with something fun my kids are more interested in learning. So this week we worked on learning our letters and vegetables. We started with painting with veggies. This is a great way to put a spin on painting and it takes playing with your food to a whole new level.

Here is what you need:
-veggies. I used celery, a cucumber, and a pepper. I think cabbage might be fun to do too.
-paint
-paint brushes
-paper

Start by preparing your veggies. I cut off the base of the celery keeping the stalks for the snack later. Cut the pepper in half horizontally and try to leave as much of the ribbing (the inside) as you can. Cut the cucumber in half. I let the veggies dry on a paper towel space down for about 30min just so the paint would stick better.

Now have your kids put the paint on the open side of the fruit. Ask them questions like what color and what vegetable they are using. Now they are ready to make a print on the paper. We made cards for Grandma. Try to teach them not to smear the vegetable around in order to get a clean print.




The cucumber makes a circle with an open middle, it looks like a cute flower. The celery has different ribs which makes a much bigger and more elaborate flower, and the pepper creates a shamrock shape. Now that I think about it this would be a great activity for spring.



Finish your prints by having the kids add leaves and stems. My kids are 2 and 3 years old and were able to do most of this activity on their own with supervision.

Next we read this creative ABC book, Eating the Alphabet by Louis Ehlert. I love this book because it shows the reader a plethora of fruits and vegetables while they learn their letters. The pictures look like water color images and the whole book is a little abstract but bright and attractive.


Finally we finished with a veggie snack. I made ants on a log from the celery we cut off allowing the kids to add the raisins and asking them to count each on as they put it on the celery.

My kids loved this activity. They were so proud of their pictures they made and my son even repeated the letters after I said each one (he is very reluctant to repeat things unless he wants to.)