E is for Eating A Rainbow Every Day

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I must confess that Bee and Bear don't eat as healthily as I would like them too. I guess that is true of a lot of 3 year olds. But so far, no matter what I try, they are very picky about what they will eat. Actually it's more to do with what they'll eat mixed together ie they'll eat spaghetti on one side of the plate and meatballs on the other but not spaghetti and meatballs mixed together. But that's another post.

One of the areas I have resolved to work on is the variety of fruits and vegetables both Bear and Bee will eat and how many serves they eat every day. This is something that I believe we will have some success with. Bee favours vegetables and Bear favours fruits and while they eat a reasonable variety I need to work on them trying new types. Especially on alternatives for their favourites such as strawberries which are out of season here and thus more expensive than say stone fruit.

To help us out we borrowed Eating the Rainbow by Rena D. Grossman from the library today.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this book, please visit my Fishpond Affiliate space by clicking on this image.

 
This is a simple board book giving examples of fruits and vegetables that fit each colour of the rainbow. I plan to use this as a springboard for discussion on what fruits and vegetables we could try and for identifying any Bee and Bear don't recognise. Already Bee has started looking at the pictures and naming the ones she does know.

Bee's favourite page - Pink!

I have also taken inspiration from a number of sites found on the net and on Pinterest. I have pinned some activities and recipes I would like to try. So far my favourites are

Eating a Rainbow - Two fun activities for kids from toddlerapproved.com

Eat your Rainbow from inner child food

Eat a Rainbow Salad from sweet potato chronicles

I am also going to create a rainbow reward chart for Bear and Bee to use to keep track of their progress. They are keen on stickers so hopefully this will be enough of an incentive. I will post a link to a printable version of the chart when it is ready.

Do you encourage your child to eat a rainbow everyday? What has worked?