INTRODUCTION 

 

This WhaddaWeek started life as “Kitchen Science,” but that sounded far too serious.  “Kitchen Magic” was better, but we didn’t want to limit food-oriented activities to just cooking, or to lose opportunities for learning about food chemistry by disguising them as magic. Then (aha!) we came up with “Playing With Your Food.”  Exactly right.

 

Tips for this WhaddaWeek:

 

• Some of the suggested doables stretch across multiple days, so think about doing more than one doable, or part of a doable, a day.

 

• A number of the doables rely on using food coloring.  The effects are fun, but it stains skin and clothing.  An adult should always be in charge of the food coloring bottles.  Also, make sure no one is allergic to any of the contents of the food coloring itself.

 

Please follow all appropriate safety measures while working in a kitchen with a child. For example: keep knives out of reach, watch out for lit burners on the stove and pots that might be overturned on to a child, avoid scalding with boiling water, and make sure whatever the child tastes or eats is safe.

 

EXTRA DOABLES IDEAS

 

There is a wide scope for other doables this week that are not described, requiring little preparation. For example:

 

• Go on a picnic for lunch or dinner

 

• Play the board game “Candyland”

 

• With the emphasis on “Playing With Your Food”:

 

• Eat meals backwards for a day – start the day with dinner and end with breakfast

 

• Eat the meals themselves backwards – start with dessert

 

• Have a meal that everyone has to eat with only fingers – even the peas on the plate

 

• Have a “create a smoothie” contest, using only fruits, yogurt, and ice combined in a blender

 

• Create a diner at your house, with menus and play food (or those smoothies you’ve made?) and stools at a counter

 

•  Think up and perform a play at your diner  

 

• Cook food from another country

 

• Eat out or order in at a new restaurant for you

 

• Try being a vegetarian for a day 

 

• Have the child make a video showing cooking techniques (whisking eggs, making a peanut butter sandwich, using a cookie cutter, etc.)

 

And here are videos of two great movie pie fights, (the adult should see these first – as with all of the other videos mentioned in WhaddaWeeks – to make sure they are appropriate for the children in their care):

 

“The Great Race”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDJQ7zn3-2g (4:23)

 

Laurel and Hardy – “The Battle of the Century” (1927) – involving 3,000 cream pies in the filming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHY5SM0YFv0  (3:41) 

 

Most of all, have fun!