Planting a Rainbow Fruit & Veggie Garden

This week we are featuring activities you can do "In the garden" as we move into the second week of Virtual Book Club Summer Camp! If you're not yet subscribed to our weekly camp emails, go here to sign up.

Today's post is sponsored by Today I Ate a Rainbow.

In addition to participating in our online virtual book club for kids, I am also co-hosting a real-life book club summer camp with my good friend Chrissie. We are using the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp themes and meeting 1-2 times per week for about an hour and a half. We've been having fun doing loads of garden themed activities that I can't wait to share with you!

This week I am excited to share a few of the activities we did inspired by Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert... including an adorable (and yummy) rainbow fruit and veggie snack! 

We started off camp by reading Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert and talking about the different flowers that we discovered in the book. The kids were really engaged and loved telling me about their favorite flowers.

After we read our book, we made our own rainbow fruit and veggie gardens.

Materials Needed: plain yogurt or a yummy fruit dip (see recipe below for ingredients), cut up fruits and vegetables, a white platter or plate, and utensils.

Directions:

Since I wasn't totally prepared ahead of time, I started off this activity by cutting some fruits and vegetables into small pieces while the kids talked with me about their favorite snacks. I highly recommend you pre-cut your fruits and veggies.

Next we gave each child a plate with some yogurt on the bottom of their plate. The yogurt served as the base for their rainbow garden.

Then we started giving the kids celery and sugar snap peas first. This was a snack AND a listening/following directions activity, so I told the kids to listen closely to what I said! We focused on directional words- under, over, next to, beside, on top of, etc.

First, I told them to put their celery on the bottom of their plates... kind of like grass or flower stalks. Next I told them to add sugar snap peas next to their celery.

After that I told them to put the strawberries and blackberries on top of their celery to make them look like flowers tops.

Then we finished the activity by giving them some carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and any extra fruits to add details to their rainbow flower gardens. I loved seeing what they created using their listening ears and a bit of their own imaginations!

Once they were done creating, they got to "plant a rainbow' in their tummies as they ate their rainbow fruit & veggie garden. 

I was impressed that my own kids tried several new veggies during this activity that they don't usually like. They kept telling me they didn't like them... but they still used them in their garden creation and afterwards they couldn't help but take a taste. Some they loved (like sugar snap peas), some they hated... but at least they tried them!

If you want to try a yummy fruit dip with your rainbow gardens... instead of yogurt, here's a sweet fruit dip that we like:

Fruit Dip

1 box vanilla instant pudding

1/2 the amount of milk that the box calls for

1/2 can (or so) Cream of Coconut

8 oz tub cool whip

Mix pudding and milk. Add cream of coconut (when you open he can make sure you stir it up because it tends to separate and is really thick and waxy on the top and liquidy on the bottom) You want this mixture to taste pretty strong because it will be diluted with the cool whip. Fold in the cool whip and refrigerate. 

Do your kids eat a rainbow every day? What are their favorite fruits or veggies? 

Our VBC Summer Camp sponsors from Today I Ate a Rainbow have some great resources to help you with healthy eating in your home!

One cool resource is their Today I Tried It FREE download. Click here to check it out.

My favorite resource is the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit.

The award winning Today I Ate A Rainbow kit gets kids ASKING to eat their fruits and veggies by turning healthy eating into a fun game! The rainbow kit comes with a magnetic chart, 4 sets of tracking magnets, The RainbowBunch book plus a money back guarantee! They are giving VBC Summer Camp participants a 15% discount right now of you use the code HUB. I want one asap! I can use all the help I can get to help my picky eaters eat more healthfully.

Another great resource are their videos. I love the In the Rainbow Kitchen Videos and the Rainbow song video. It is fun to see Kia and her daughter Hannah creating and singing together!

How do you encourage healthy eating in your home?

Are you a follower of Today I Ate a Rainbow? Take a sec to go over and follow them on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. The little eaters in your house will thank you.

Come back tomorrow to see the other "in the garden" activities we are sharing and also head over to The Educators' Spin On It to see their Tiny Seed activities.

Don't forget to enter our "In the Garden" giveaways from Green Kid Crafts and NurtureStore as well. Go here for more details!

You can find other Lois Ehlert inspired blog posts here in our Lois Ehlert Virtual Book Club for Kids link up!

Disclosure: Thanks to Today I Ate a Rainbow for sponsoring today's post and participating in VBC Summer Camp. Today I Ate a Rainbow is compensating me for this post, but all opinions in the post are 100% mine.