Throughout this past week Ashton has been exploring lots of fruit. He is loving his fruit puree’s at the moment so I thought I would explore fruit with him in a way that would start him recognizing what the fruits look like before they are pureed. Before I gave him a particular fruit for one of his meals I sat down with him and let him play with the fruit for a bit. He held it with his hands and of course picked it up and put it in his mouth. He inspected it from a distance and up close.
Peaches and Nectarines Yum Yum!
After his initial inspection seemed to be over I took the fruit and started eating it next to him. Straight away his curiosity and interest in the fruit picked up again, he started watching me intently while I ate, then he started reaching out to me to give him the piece of fruit. So I would give him the fruit and straight away he would start munching on the bit where I had started eating. If I took it away from him or it dropped from his grasp he would get upset that he had lost his snack. He was really starting to enjoy exploring the fruit!
Banana's and Apples! Mmmm!
As the week progressed and we kept exploring different fruits or whenever I was eating anything he would start to insist I share with him. He has also begun to enjoy eating a lot more in general.
Today Brooklyn had a very special treat for afternoon tea – a juicy, succulent, fleshy, WATERMELON! But this afternoon tea was no ordinary afternoon tea.
As soon Brooklyn saw the watermelon there were a few excited giggles. As I placed the watermelon on the chopping board, Brooklyn immediately associated the shape of it with a ball and started to kick it! It didn’t really budge as it was almost as heavy as her.
We then sliced down the middle, and cut a slice off. We both had a little sniff . . . it smelt very sweet. MMMmmmm I love the smell of watermelon!
We hollowed the flesh out and made a big circular frame. Brooklyn loved this and held it up to her face to look through the hole. She started feeling the inside with her fingers and couldn’t resist nibbling around the outside. We then decided to press cookie cutters into the flesh to make fun watermelon shapes! After demolishing a few of these, she turned to the big piece of watermelon and started poking her fingers through the flesh and picking out the seeds. She liked the cool feel of the flesh on her hands.
Who ever knew that exploring watermelon could be such an adventure!
RANDOM FACT: Did you know that because watermelon is part of the ‘cucurbitaceous’ family, watermelon is also classified as a vegetable. Some growers consider it as both fruit and vegetable, and sometimes call it a “Fregetable”. How interesting!
Yesterday The Polkadots got to do a little show for the holiday programme children at YouthTown and with the inspiration from our little activity on Monday we decided to make one of our songs called “Healthy Me” a little more practical!
The song “Healthy Me” (from the Body Bop album) teaches us all about the foods we should and shouldn’t eat. So we decided to get the children to help us sort out some food into categories of “Eat Lots” “Eat Some” and “Eat as a Treat”. The children were really good at putting the foods into their correct pile! If they weren’t too sure we talked quickly about what it was made of and why it was good or bad for our bodies!
This activity was a good reminder for us too as we all try and get back into shape after Christmas! ;o)
All the children from the YouthTown Holiday Programme
Yes! it’s time for the green Polkadot to do some blogging this week! How exciting! As I was lying in bed this morning thinking about Brooklyn and what her interests were, one of the first things that popped to mind was food!
The morning routine went as usual but when we were in Brooklyn’s room to get her dressed, she spotted something poking out behind the shelf. It just happened to be . . . a Food Chart! It was a present for her 1st birthday from her very health-conscious Nanny wanting to pass on her wisdom! Using her manners (and in a most insistent tone) Brooklyn repeated “Eeese! EEEase!” She finally managed to pull out the chart. I was quickly lead to the lounge while a very excited Brooklyn placed the chart down and started to point to the images.
I thought it would be best to tell Brooklyn “We can eat lots of these foods because they are good for our bodies and very yummy!” She put her head down to the fruit and started making little munching noises. Too Cute! Then we named and pointed to each fruit and vegetable. It was so adorable to hear her repeat each name because every word had about 10 syllables! Sometimes there was a little story for each fruit we pointed to. (I’m loving this stage!) The fruit she best pronounced was her favourite fruit of all time ‘naana’.
However, pointing to pictures just wasn’t enough for Brooklyn. So we thought it would be best to take things a step further and actually taste the fruit. There’s nothing like the real thing! So I brought out some strawberries, a banana, and half an apple. She was happy to chomp on her banana as we named them all again. She got quite good at identifying each fruit on the chart when getting her to point to them.
Brookie looking at the Fruit and Vege Chart
Learning the proper names of her fruits and vegetables as well as tasting the real thing, Brooklyn had the opportunity to start recognising healthy foods. The younger she can start learning about healthy food, the more likely she will be to practise a healthy lifestyle later on in life! And don’t we all want healthy children? 
