- Offer children a choice of veggies when creating vegetable people.vegetables image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
Those looking for a fun after school activity or wanting to incorporate a craft or activity into your classroom lessons on nutrition should consider vegetable people. Vegetable people allow kids to learn more about healthy nutritious foods and to discover the new veggie varieties that are out there. If you incorporate lesser known vegetables, such as okra, kale and jicama, kids can experience veggies beyond what they are familiar with. - Prepare different shapes and colors of vegetables out of construction paper---green peppers, small and large red tomatoes, long green beans, round brown beans, yellow corn kernels and so forth. Give each child a blank piece of paper and let them build a Vegetable Man out of the shapes. Once the figure is assembled, allow children to write the names of the vegetables directly on the shape.
Pair this project with a classroom reading of "Growing Vegetable Soup" by Lois Ehlert. The book describes what it takes to plant, tend and harvest vegetables to contribute to nutritious meals. - Give children a variety of freshly washed vegetables to make people good enough to eat. Use long stalks of celery or a bumpy cucumber for the body, ruffled lettuce for a dress or hair, cherry tomatoes or radishes for eyes, smaller green beans, onion shoots or carrot sticks for limbs, for example. Kids can lay the veggie people out in front of them, and use toothpicks or veggie dip to stick them together. When the people are assembled and photos taken, let kids eat their creations with a variety of creamy dips.
- Use the unique shapes and textures of vegetables to create characters. Prepare paper plates with different colors of tempera paint. Cut up vegetables with unique textures, such as the top of broccoli, half a potato, thin carrot sticks, little round peas and various vegetable leaves. Help children press part of the vegetable into the paint, then remove some paint by pressing the vegetable onto a paper towel. Press the painted side of the veggie onto paper and lift it quickly. Continue to stamp vegetable shapes in the form of a person, using different colors and vegetables to create a unique character. When the paint is dry, children can add details with a fine-tipped black marker.
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