One of the primary goals I have as a mom is to teach my kids to love eating healthy food. The reason we share our creative and healthy snacks here is to give parents plenty of ideas on how to present a healthy meal in a FUN way.
I also love sharing other resources that are out there so that you, dear reader, can have a great arsenal of tricks up your sleeve to encourage your kids along their journey of nourishing their bodies by learning to make healthy food choices. As kids get older, not only do they have more independence when it comes to preparing their own meals, they also develop more specific tastes. Sometimes, kids can decide that they do not like something that they used to really enjoy eating. It’s in situations like this that you need to pull out a secret tool for getting them to eat healthy.
Kitchen Club Kids has created a collection of story books that contain healthy recipes for kids. The recipes are designed to be able to be prepared by kids of any age. Each recipe is full of healthy ingredients like fruits and vegetables. The objective is to create an experience for children in reading a fun story, planning a recipe out, making the recipe, and then enjoying a healthy snack! Sounds like a total win to me!
Kitchen Club Kids sent us the End of the Rainbow Fruit Salad book to try out share our thoughts with you. Here was our experience:
The day the book arrived at our doorstep, the girls saw that it was a new book for them. The colors and images immediately grabbed their attention. Grace, (almost 6), read the story to herself and then to her younger sister. She asked if we were going to make the fruit salad from the book that day. I told her that we were going to do a special shopping trip first to collect the ingredients for the salad, and that she would be in charge of making the grocery list! This was a great way to give her even more ownership of the experience.
Shopping for Ingredients
We took the list Grace had written up and went to our local grocery store. The items that are checked off in the photo above are the items we had on hand already in the house. She listed every ingredient in the recipe on her paper, then checked to see what we had and what we still needed.
The girls loved going shopping for their own ingredients to make their own special recipe. I know that Grace felt just like her mommy here, because she has been on many grocery runs with me as I go through my own list. Shopping was a fun and vital part of the fun of this recipe-making experience for us.
Preparing the Ingredients
Back at home, Grace read the story one more time as we collected each item needed for our fruit salad. We made sure each item was on the table ready to go as it was mentioned in the book.
Making the Salad
The combination of ingredients in this fruit salad recipe is absolutely delicious. Some of the items in the recipe are not ones that I typically add to fruit salad, (like kiwi, papaya, and cherries), but I must say that the flavor combination is absolutely delicious! The colors are beautiful too! The kids could help me make this fruit salad again and again. It would be fun to make it for a wedding or baby shower.
Time to Eat
The girls and I LOVED this yummy salad. Grace was thrilled to have completed this delicious project basically all by herself.
A Family Affair
I mentioned recently in one of my Instagram photos that I was struck by how fast time is going, and that some days I wish I could just hit the pause button. As my girls grow up, I am realizing how important it is to “fill their love tank” each day by giving them some focused attention and really listening to how they feel. An experience like this is a bonding opportunity as well as a time to create a beautiful, healthy dish we can be proud of. Make sure you head over to Kitchen Club Kids to learn more about them, and maybe pick up a couple copies of their healthy recipe story books!
