Edible Obstacle Course

Explore foods on an obstacle course with your picky eater!This is a fun activity on a plate or tray or you could make a giant obstacle course on one of those big, plastic, picnic tablecloths.First, set up your course. You can make ramps, water features, places the food can't touch the ground and has to jump. Get creative and have fun with it!Then pick foods you want to take through the course. You can use foods whole or take them apart/cut them into smaller pieces. Start with a deconstruct activity and use the pieces for the obstacle course or have some cut pieces ready to go.You could also do an obstacle course round after each step of taking a food apart. For example, if you want to explore a tangerine you could do the course with the whole tangerine, then the unpeeled tangerine and then each segment.Language:Use short phrases to describe what the food is doing and where it is going.Example: first roll over, then jump up, then slide down, then swim across, then run, run, run and done!This is a great activity to work on expanding verb vocabulary. Often children learn a lot of nouns, names of things first, but in order to put 2 words together (a skill we want to see emerge between 18 and 24 months), we need to know words for what those nouns can do. By speaking in short phrases of mainly nouns and verbs, we can help teach kids how to put words together!So get creative and put together a fun ride for a baby carrot, chunk of pear or slice of banana!Comment and share--how did the activity go? What foods did you use?Enjoy, happy food play!