This weeks ‘theme’ in the Raja household was ‘vegetables!’ So we’ve done LOTS of crafts and activities based around this topic…
My favourite has to be ‘potato printing’ where I found myself staying longer at the crafts table than the children as I wanted to ‘perfect’ my piece of art! 🤣 (not gonna lie I’m pretty impressed with the finished product above!) It was so simple carving out various shapes on our potatoes, covering them in paint & plonking them on the paper… My eldest enjoyed creating the ‘rainbow’ print, you just cut a potato in half and paint your pattern, then place it down on the paper. I liked the ‘butterfly’ print which was a similar format, but you placed the potato down 4 times to create each of the wings. My youngest created a unique ‘leaf’ print where she carved lots of lines on her potato and when painted it portrayed a ‘leaf’ effect.
The magic wet & stick noodles were out in force again this week! The girls created a wonderful ‘vegetable patch’ on the table then added a ‘sun’ and ‘rain cloud’ to help them grow! My eldest then decided to create a ‘vegetable show’ bringing each creation to life in turn and improvising a story. (Obviously the youngest had a turn after and created the exact same story much to the disapproval of the oldest!)
With a ‘vegetable’ theme we have eaten our way through ALOT of veg! I’m lucky that my girls love the good stuff, however this week they got involved in the food prep for dinner! From vegetable soup & vegetable pasta to vegetable fajitas & vegetable risotto… All chopped with their little hands!! Making ‘vegetable faces’ was also a firm favourite! 😜 A great tip for potato peel, don’t throw them away…. Put them on a baking tray with olive oil and season with salt, pepper & paprika. Bake for 30 minutes and you have some very tasty crisps!! (My girlies demolished them so quick that daddy didn’t even get to try them😋)
We also played lots of ‘vegetable’ themed games! My favourite is the warm up game ‘beans’ where I call out different types of beans (jelly, jumping, broad, baked etc) and the children respond with a corresponding action. (Eg string beans reach up high, beans on toast lay on top of each etc) It gets them exercising and having fun too! Today, as it was such a glorious day we created a vegetable themed water balloon game which was hilarious and basically involved throwing and catching the different ‘ballon vegetables’ (and of course throwing them at each other!)
Keeping outdoors we also planted some vegetable seeds. We usually plant flower seeds so this was a first time experience for us! I have a feeling some should have been planted in a vegetable patch…. So let’s see how they grow in my funky pots!!
We also brought ‘vegetables’ into our learning this week… We did vegetable maths, vegetable stories, vegetable poetry & songs! Whilst I was creating their maths worksheets one morning, both girls stood eagerly over my shoulder trying to see what they would be doing! I think it’s important to make learning fun so the children are interested and therefore want to learn. If I would have set down a normal worksheet, I know their reaction would have been completely different! We also played lots of vegetable themed learning games… My youngest loves the ‘shopping trolley’ game which is a great memory game (that she always beats me at!!)
Another craft idea that the children really enjoyed this week was our hands & feet carrots! My four year old loves painting her body parts so this was right up her street… First we painted our paper plates blue, then we cut a different paper plate in half, painted it brown then stapled both plates together creating a sky & soil effect. Then for one of the plates we painted our feet orange for the carrots and added green paper for tops and the other plate we used tissue paper for the carrots and painted our hands green for the tops… Lots of messy fun!! (I did this activity outside as I didn’t trust little green hands on my white walls 🤪)
All in all we’ve had a great vegetable themed week and I hope this blog post leaves you with some simple craft ideas that you can try at home too… Now I’ve just got to tackle a carrot cake to finish off ‘vegetable week’ and as my track record of baking isn’t the best, wish me luck!!
Sending lots of boogie love
Kimberley