Beach Food Play!

Make a breadcrumb beach and dried blueberry waves for your fish crackers; add sliced almond shells and play at the beach! Often picky eaters don't like the feeling of crumbs on their hands. They wipe their fingers as soon as they feel anything sticking to them. Breadcrumbs are crumbly, but they don't stick to your fingers unless they're wet. Playing with breadcrumbs is a great way to get kids used to crumbs. Make a beach and add some sliced almonds or cereal pieces for shells. Show your child how you can find the shells with your fingers, then dump them back out and find them again.If making this scene is too advanced for your younger child, playing in a bin of breadcrumbs can be a fun variation! You can hide food to be 'shells' under the breadcrumbs or hide a favorite toy and have them find it.Language and Senses:Talk about the texture of the different foods. The breadcrumbs are crumbly. The crackers are more smooth than crumbly, but what happens when you break one?See if your child will crumble crackers in crumbs with you. Often foods seem very different from each other on the outside. Picky eaters are hestitant to try foods they don't know about,  but once we know that a new food is similar to another food we know and like, it's not as scary to try it. This idea is one of the pillars of Food Chaining, a great process to introduce new foods and help kids expand their diets.Add a Song:Sing a song about fish swimming in the sea like this one I found on youtube.Enjoy and happy food play!