Summer nibbles and picnics

Summer brings an array of wonderful seasonal fruit and vegetables, that children can investigate and eat! Using seasonal vegetables helps children to develop ideas about the different seasons and the passing of time.

Ideally these can be provided from the nursery garden or donated from parents’ gardens or allotments. Or a trip to the local market or green grocer with small groups of children will offer opportunities to look closely, smell and talk, and think about what is available and how it could be used.

Shopping for specific ingredients for a planned menu can involve looking at recipe books, writing shopping lists and considering how much things might cost.

Investigating vegetables – bring a range of vegetables into the service such as :

• root vegetables such as carrots,parsnips, radishes and some potatoes
• broad beans, runner beans, french beans
• peas in the pod to open, sort and count
• unusual vegetables such as aubergine, artichokes, fennel bulbs
• different lettuces – lollo rosso, cos, lamb’s lettuce, little gem
• a selections of herbs such as chives, thyme, mint, rosemary

Encourage the children to:

• hold and examine them,smell and taste them
• compare shape, size, weight, texture, colour, length
• wash them ready for meal preparation
• chop and combine with other ingredients
• discuss and demonstrate which vegetables are usually grated, mashed, or peeled
• talk about where you would find these vegetables – ie on a tree or in the ground
• discuss how they look and taste, and which ones can be eaten without cooking

Set up an area where you can help support the children to:

• peel and chop raw vegetables
• prepare dips for the chopped veges
• prepare a salad
• make a coleslaw
• make a soup or a stew
• plant their own lettuce

Have reference books, fiction books, recipe books and menu samples available, along with pictures of different foods.

Investigate the different seasonal fruits available by bringing in a basket of plums,apples,oranges, grapes, tomatoes and different types of berries.

The fruit could cut in half, quarters, slices, chunks ready to eat, or mixed up and made into a fruit salad, a pie, or into fruit juice.

Talk about the different fruits and ask questions, to facilitate discussion with the children, and ask them what types of food they have at home, what they like/dislike and so forth.

Early Childhood Ireland in partnership with safefood have developed Little Bites, an online food and nutrition hub specifically to meet the needs of the early childhood care and education sector.

Prepare a picnic

One of the lovely things about summer is dining al fresco – having picnics in the park or in the backyard.

Have the children been on a picnic before? What food did they eat?What other items did they bring?

Read or sing ‘The Teddy Bears Picnic’ and discuss where you would like to go for a picnic – maybe at the local park if you have enough parents to volunteer and go with you, or otherwise in your backyard.

Discuss what food the children would like to bring on their picnic – how will they prepare it? carry it? what will they sit on to eat it?What other activities would they like to do on their picnic? Maybe they could have a tea party as well with a tea set.
The food preparation listed above would be a start- making salads, coleslaw’s and fruit salad for example. Check in with children’s dietary requirements and allergies first, just in case they may have a reaction to certain foods.

Draw up a list with the children of necessary ingredients and items, and why not  invite the parents – they may wish to contribute to the picnic with some food dishes.

Books and Ryhmes

• The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy & Niamh Sharkey
• Vegetable Rainbow
• Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne
• Oliver’s Vegetables and Oliver’s Fruit Salad by Vivian French and Alison Bartlett
• Five Red Apples
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• The Teddy Bear’s Picnic
• Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear by Emily Gravett
• I Eat Fruit and I Eat Vegetables by Hannah Tofts and Rupert Horrox
• I’m a little teapot
• Food Rhymes by John Foster and Carol Thompson
• See our Nursery Rhymes page for more ideas!