Beyond the Book: "Gregory, the Terrible Eater" by Mitchell Sharmat

It's been a while since we did a story stretcher here, and with temperatures outside cold enough to ice your coffee--literally (see photo to the left), an afternoon indoors is definitely in order. S has been learning about health and nutrition in school this week. He is very happy to be back in preschool! He loves being there and gains a great deal from the experience. He is, nonetheless, often reluctant (as many children are) to share about his day after I pick him up. I am creative with how and when I ask questions. Open-ended questions right upon pick-up, like "how was your day?" or "what did you do today?" are often met with silence. For one thing, he is very ready for a nap at that point and this transition is a challenging one. For another, the question really puts him on the spot and one thing he can control at three years old is what, when, and how he answers. Many days I will simply ask "would you like to tell me about school now or later?" He often says "later," and sometimes he says "now!" I ask more specific questions on some days, like "what made you laugh?" or "who did you play with on the playground?" And on all days, the  best glimpse I get into S's school experience is through his play. He will play about, sing about and talk about his school day throughout his time at home--you simply have to catch him in the act!

Another area that is a hot bed for three year old control is eating. I am here to tell you thirty years after being S's age that I am a fully recovered Terrible Eater. Before I was a parent, I vowed I would not be a short order cook the way my own mother was, often preparing three different dinners and barely sitting down to one herself. Y has been a total chow-hound these days, yet to meet a food he does not love. S began in much the same way, but around the age of two began to show preferences about foods. When his nutrition was less than optimal, we supplemented with homemade smoothies, which he still loves. He eats a variety of healthy foods (and enjoys a variety of less healthy ones), but he is definitely particular still and often reluctant to try new things. He will down a green smoothie, but won't eat a hotdog. He wants the same thing for breakfast and lunch each day. He wants a variety of options for dinner and none of them include what's on our family menu. My husband and I quickly decided not to allow mealtimes to be battlegrounds in our home. The energy level by dinner time is dwindling and it is also a family time after a long day of school, work, and other activities. It feels more important to have peaceful time as a family where there is something for everyone to eat than for everyone to eat the same something.

Gregory, the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat, illustrated by Jose Aruego and Ariana Dewey is a wonderful, classic children's tale of a goat who adamantly refuses to eat the foods his parents want him to eat. What child or parent can't relate to this? The only difference here is that Gregory favors fruits and vegetables while his parents would prefer he eat the shoelaces and cardboard being served at the family table.

This afternoon, we will enjoy laughing our way through this favorite book along with some fun extension activities. It likely won't change our dinnertime much here, but you never know...

 Eat a Rainbow of Fruits & Veggies Sorting Game

In this DIY sorting activity, I printed and laminated a collection of photos of fruits and vegetables in a rainbow of colors. I also printed off color coded words to label each of six brown paper lunch bags. Alternatively, you can use and label paper plates, use colored gift bags or canvas bags or even color code a six-sectioned party tray. S will have the task to sort the colorful fruits and vegetables into their correct bag. This is a great opportunity to talk about fruits and veggies your family likes or does not like as well as to introduce vocabulary around fruits and veggies you may not have tried yet. You can talk about how important it is to eat a variety of different foods in different colors.

Want to do more? If you have a toy shopping cart or basket or even a recycled/reusable shopping bag, send your little ones on a scavenger hunt through the toy kitchen (or even your real kitchen) to find more foods in each of the colors.

Take a Family Field Trip to the grocery or produce store and let your children choose a new fruit or vegetable to try. If it is something you've never had before, it can be fun to choose a recipe together to prepare it. S is often reluctant to try new foods at first, but if he chooses it, it's a game changer. Additionally, involving him in the preparation process also inspires a brave pallet. When he is particularly averse to trying something, I might offer him to touch it with his tongue. I do not force children (my own or students) to try foods and I also believe there is value in being honest with them about trying new foods. I do use language like "you may like it and you may not like it but you won't know if you like it unless you try it." I also tell them honestly about foods I don't care for as much or examples of times I used to not like something but liked it after trying it several times (like sushi!). Many enthusiasts on the topic steer clear of adults discussing foods they do not like in front of children, but I feel it is helpful to be honest and also to point out that different people like different things at different times and that's OK! It also opens up important conversations about how to politely decline or discuss foods that are not one's favorite.

Dramatic play is a big part of our afternoon fun here. S has been particularly into small world play and this miniature goat, chair and table and our collection of miniature toy food will undoubtedly inspire a great story drama! Y can join in the fun as well with this larger play set with a plush goat and toy food and dishes.

Color, Paste and Taste the Rainbow!

I found a great free printable on Teachers Pay Teachers to use as a template for this activity. I did a bit of prep work to save on time by color coding, but depending on your little ones' level of ability or your availability to assist, you can definitely leave this to them. You can provide printed pictures of fruits, veggies or other foods, stickers or magazine pictures to glue on and crayons for additional coloring.

Want to do even more? My favorite recipes to make each year when parashas Noach comes are rainbow fruit salad and rainbow vegetable salad.  S may prefer the taste of the rainbow in his favorite candy, jelly beans, but he also loves fruit and many vegetables as well. Presenting foods in novel ways is a great way to encourage your own terrible eaters or even just particular/opinionated ones!

There are so many studies to support the benefits of involving children in family nutrition. From farm to store to kitchen to table, participation gives them a connection to the important process of feeding and nourishing their bodies. S really loves to help in the kitchen. Y loves to be in there with me as well (especially if eating is involved or loudly banging pots and pans). For those times when I need to plow through a stack of dishes or prepare dinner with fewer cooks in the kitchen, the sensory table (also in the kitchen) is a great lure. In this simple sensory bin, just add soapy water and let your little hands scrub some fruits and veggies in a rainbow of colors! S has also enjoyed scrubbing actual fruits and veggies in the past (which is particularly helpful when I am making vegetable soup or a salad!) but soapy water and some interesting sponges or scrub brushes are always fun for little hands, no matter what is in the bin along with it.

We're off to an afternoon of good reading and food for thought. Happy Playing!

Short Stretch: It Looked Like Spilt Milk

It's our third day playing about our target book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett and I had a couple of additional theme-related books I wanted to incorporate this week. I decided today would be a great day to do a short story stretcher on the book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw. This book follows the curious mystery of a differently shaped white splotch on each dark blue page. The reader can observe it take on a variety of familiar shapes that it looks like, including spilt milk, an ice cream cone, a sheep...until the very end when it is revealed that it is, in fact, a cloud! This particular book was a great candidate to incorporate the themes of food and weather presented in our target book. We read the book together first and then proceeded to make our own version of the story with a simple and fun art activity.

To make your own version of It Looked Like Spilt Milk, you will need:

• blue construction paper
• white paint
• plastic spoons
• a cup or bowl for your paint
• a marker for writing (we used a white marker to resemble the book, but a darker color is fine as well)

Begin by drizzling white paint onto your paper. S really liked this part! Huge puddles of paint are not ideal but little puddles are just fine...

Next, fold your paper in half and press your hands over top to smooth the paint across the page.

The grand reveal is always exciting! This is a great opportunity to teach the concept of symmetry. Next your young author and illustrator can decide what the resulting picture resembles. We had a lot of butterflies, snow storms, and flowers here--but we also discovered a turtle and a dinosaur fossil! 

S loved creating this book together and dictating the story. He equally loves rereading it and showing it to Y!

This short book and simple activity are a great fit for when you're short on time. If you'd like to do more with it, here's a peek at some of our other activities today related to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and our supplement story, It Looked Like Spilt Milk:

• We are making homemade banana milkshakes this afternoon for snack. S is not such a fan of milk but does love smoothies!
• What do milk, meatballs and macaroni all have in common? They all begin with the letter Mm, which makes a sound just like the one we make when something tastes delicious: mmmmm. To review the letter Mm, we made this simple Munch Monster Game:

Fold a white paper plate in half and decorate it to look like a monster. We used markers and stickers for eyes. Inside his "mouth" I always write the letter Mm--older children can trace it or write it on their own. Munch Monsters are always hungry but only like things that begin with the letter Mm. I like to use sticky notes for children to write/dictate or draw their Mm words on. You could even use magazine cut outs if you prefer or printed images/words.

Mmmmmm, the letter Mm is delicious!

• It's always fun to sneak some science into the routine. We set up and created our own sun resist art today. This simple weather related science experiment produces a picture also somewhat in the style of the illustrations in It Looked Like Spilt Milk!

We used a cookie sheet and blue construction paper. Any darker color of construction paper will work well. You can purchase sun resist paper online or in craft shops that will actually turn white beneath the objects, but this produces significant results on its own! Choose objects from around your home to place on the paper. I recommend flatter objects for the best results. You can even use items found in nature if you prefer, like leaves, flowers, rocks, etc. Set your materials on the paper as you like and leave in a sunny spot. We left ours outside for a couple of hours this morning during the peak sun in our backyard and came back to amazing results!

The finished product can also be used like a puzzle. S loves fitting the objects back on their "shadows."

• For some more fun playing with your food, these free printable fun food playdough mats paired with your favorite playdough, tools and accessories make for a lot of creative fun in constructing and pretending about favorite foods.

S made a lot of cupcakes, birthday cakes and spaghetti with meatballs!

• For some more cloud themed fun, shaving cream is a great medium for sensory play.

You can squirt some shaving cream on a tray, use it in the tub or even outside. If you like, you can add some food coloring or paint. You can even observe mixing colors if you wish. It's a great medium for practicing strokes, lines, shapes and letters for early writers, for just getting your hands messy for those who like to, and for those who don't, feel free to add in tools like a spoon or fork , comb or craft sticks...

Hope you find one or a few of these short stretches a good addition to your own summer fun! We'll see you next time and until then...

Happy Playing!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Day 2: Sensory Play & Process Art

It's Day 2 of our Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs story stretcher and we are still having so much fun with this book theme! S loved using the pasta sensory bin yesterday with some little people, toy food and construction vehicles to play about the town of Chewandswallow. We used dry pasta in our sensory bin, though cooked spaghetti can also make for a great sensory experience. You can also dye your pasta if you wish, like we did in this post. There are varied opinions around using food for play and art with children and it can be a downright hot topic among parents and educators. One end of the spectrum feels that using food for purposes other than eating is wasteful while the other end of the spectrum feels it is not and also poses benefits. I fall somewhere in the middle of the road on the topic. On one hand, I do not like to waste any material we use for sensory play and art. For that reason, I tend to gravitate toward materials that can be used more than once. I do feel that the opportunity to play with and manipulate food can help familiarize more particular eaters. For children who are not particular about what they put in their mouths, edible materials for art and play can be of great benefit! I recently read a particularly interesting article on the topic of food being used in play, titled "Is It Wasteful to Play With Food?" and encourage you to read it for a fresh perspective as well. If you do wish to use food items for play, I tend to post ones in here that can be used repeatedly.

Some prefer to use for play only what can then be used for consumption and will go from playing in dry oats to baking oatmeal cookies. I often joke that using a box of pasta for play, art, stringing and sorting leaves far less to the trash can than a typical dinner served to my toddler! If you prefer not to use food for play, however, feel free to substitute in yarn for your "spaghetti" or shredded paper instead.

We started our morning with a Table Time activity to decorate an apron. S has been particularly inclined to help in the kitchen. When I saw this coloring apron on sale at a craft store a few weeks ago, I stashed it away for this book theme. He was so enamored with it that he wore it all morning! He also asked to take out the sensory bin again this morning. I offered the suggestion to add in the Magnatiles and build about the town of Chewandswallow. He loved the idea and took to building houses outside of the bin and filling them with pasta! He is also quite self-sufficient with being manager of Chewandswallow's sanitation department, so I didn't worry too much about spills and pasta outside of the bin. You can put down a drop cloth if you prefer, although picking up dry pasta is a great fine motor exercise!

We have also greatly enjoyed our target book's sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh also by Judi and Ron Barrett. In this equally tall tale told by Henry, the grandson in the first book, the people of Chewandswallow return to their hometown turn their own misfortune into a mitzvah. They are able to use the giant food that flooded their town to feed hungry people across the world! As I think about the topic of how abundantly we are fortunate to live that we can use food here both for play and for consumption, I am reminded that for many others, hunger is a very real issue. Particularly during the summer months when schools are not in session (and reduced cost/no cost school breakfasts and lunches not an option for families in need) there is a great and real struggle to get through the day with adequate nutritional intake. Every morning we begin our day with prayers and with giving tzedakah (charity). S and Y (with my help) put a coin in our tzedakah box and when it gets full, we empty it, count it and make a donation before beginning again to fill it, day by day, one coin at a time. One of our favorite agencies to donate to is Masbia Soup Kitchen Network, a group of soup kitchens and food pantries that cater to hundreds of families in New York. This seems like a wonderfully theme related way to incorporate service projects and Jewish values with our story stretcher theme. Food banks more locally to wherever you live are a great place to bring donations to particularly in the summer months.
Meanwhile, I definitely didn't want Y to miss out on all the themed fun and play. I set out this invitation to create a Chewandswallow Sensory Bottle yesterday in the evening, and S got a great kick out of making a set of toys both he and his brother can use. He worked with great determination and concentration at pinching and dropping the pasta into each bottle.

We used clear plastic craft bottles (but you can recycle an empty plastic bottle if you have one at home), dry pasta small enough to fit through the top and miniature food we found at the craft store. You can alternatively use red pompoms for "meatballs" or buttons shaped like food or even make your own tiny foods using clay that can be baked or left to harden. 

S particularly likes the sound the pasta makes when you shake the bottle. Y is not as much a fan of the sound...

Y IS a fan of putting it in his mouth! Speaking of which, if your little ones are at risk to actually chew and swallow what's inside the Chewandswallow sensory bottle, you'll want to tape or hot glue the bottle shut. 

In addition to shaking and, um, sucking on, it's a lot of fun to play Chewandswallow I-Spy with these and search for all the tiny foods inside. S particularly likes to find the itsy bitsy donuts!

Prompted by S's interest in putting his lunch on our Pasta Taste Test chart yesterday and my sister's art project with her sons during their Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs story stretcher, today we made our own "Macaroni and Meatballs" collage. This was a fun little process art activity that really captured S's attention as he drizzled glue, placed on pieces of pasta and experimented with pouring pom poms over the paper and shaking off the excess to see which ones stayed put to puddles of glue he had left behind!

We will be back tomorrow with some fun alphabet review and another great children's book to explore the sub-themes of weather and food! Until then, happy playing...

Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

 Welcome to the second week of our Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp! This week's fiction forecast is one of our favorite books of all time, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, pictures by Ronald Barrett. This book captures the bedtime tall tale told by a grandfather to his two grandchildren of the town of Chewandswallow. This town is much like any other except for the fact that there are no grocery stores or restaurants; all of the food eaten by its inhabitants comes from the sky in the form of some very wacky (and tasty) weather! This great story along with its enthralling illustrations will really stretch your imagination (and possibly also your waistband if you're not careful)!
I must give credit where credit is due, and give a shout out to my sister (if you're reading this, hi, schvester!), who is an amazing play at home mom of two wonderful boys and early childhood educator by trade. She and her preschool aged sons also love doing story stretchers together and we often share our ideas. (Ok, I'm kind of more stealing this one than sharing it.) A few weeks ago as I was planning out the first few themes for our Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp, she sent me some photos of the activities she and her sons did with this book as well as its equally fabulous sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh. I was super impressed and inspired, and knew I wanted to include a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs week here, as it is already one of S's favorite books to read together. And with Father's Day coming this Sunday, we are also busy working on some homemade gifts for the amazing Tatty in our house and the two wonderful grandfathers in our sons' lives. What better book to inspire our play this week than one with a fabulous bedtime story narrated by a grandpa? I love this book as well for its very versatile play themes, including storytelling/tall tales, food/cooking, and weather/precipitation. These are all great sub-themes to expand upon through multisensory play and will inspire many of the activities we do this week as we make our journey to the fictional land of Chewandswallow to engage in some exciting dramatic play, art, sensory play, building/STEM activities, science experiments, and of course, taste tests!

If you'd like to set up your own Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Story Stretcher, here are some materials you may wish to include:

• building toys and manipulatives, like blocks, Lego/Duplo blocks, Magnatiles or even recycled boxes for building your own Chewandswallow
• toy people and construction vehicles to add to your town of Chewandswallow
• play food, kitchen accessories, kitchen set, aprons for dramatic play
• construction paper (blue and any other colors you like), easel paper, white paper plates, glue, white paint, pompoms, dry pasta, markers/crayons, old magazines with pictures of food, scissors, stickers with pictures of food for our art projects
• dry pasta for cooking and for sensory play

We're all set up for some sensory bin dramatic play about the town of Chewandswallow! You can add in some blocks or building manipulatives, too, if you'd like!

• miniature food or buttons shaped like food, small dry pasta, recycled clear plastic bottles for Chewandswallow sensory bottles

S loves to help make themed sensory bottles for both he and Y to use with our play and story themes. Small dry pasta and miniature food from the dollhouse section of the craft store made a great filler for this week's books, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and its sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh.

• shaving cream, food coloring and a recycled jar or glass for our weather themed science experiment later this week
• pasta in a variety of shapes and two or more varieties of pickles for taste testing
• any other theme related toys or materials you can think of! I pulled out a set of Mr. Potato Head toys we found a while ago at a secondhand store and S has had a lot of fun with this food themed toy!

Reading together!

I began setting up our story stretcher materials over the weekend, and as soon as S saw the target book on his shelf, he brought it over to read together. He loves this book! I always introduce the idea of what a tall tale is when I read this to young children. Many preschool aged children go through phases of telling their own tall tales. For adults, it can be alarming to hear children tell blatant fibs and pass them off as the truth. We wish for our children to grow up as honest, upstanding citizens and to be aware of and sensitive to reality versus the imagination. Of course, there is a difference between telling a fib to avoid getting into trouble--"It wasn't me, the baby did it!"--versus the types of tall tales children may tell to gain attention or just express creativity. With students I have had who frequently tell tall tales of the latter type, I do give the language to say "this is a tall tale," first so that their peers can identify when a story is true and when it is made up for entertainment. Honesty is an important social skill in developing friendships. That said, this type of creativity and story telling are fabulous skills that can be homed in on through an appropriate lens. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a great book to demonstrate this--after all, as I tell my students, there is a whole section of the library devoted to authors who like to tell tall tales and it's called the fiction department! I encourage young story tellers to put their stories to words and pictures. Creating a space where telling tall tales is accepted can sometimes mitigate them being told in less socially appropriate fashions.

We began our week this morning by reading our target book again. Our art shelf is stocked with a tray of food stickers and food pictures cut from recycled magazines, greeting cards and food ads. Older children can definitely cut out their own given the materials. I set that out along with markers and a glue stick with his journal and the prompt "Today's weather is cloudy with a chance of ______." S got to decide what delicious weather would fall from the sky, and picked "lollipops and plums." 

He found a picture of an ice cream cone cut from an old birthday card and dictated that he would eat that first! In the land of Chewandswallow, dessert can always come first!

Using a piece of easel paper and a similar prompt taped to the door, S can enjoy working on a vertical surface to create his own Chewandswallow poster. He has gone back to this activity multiple times.

Pasta Taste Test

Meatballs are lonely without their delicious counterpart, spaghetti. I happen to have a toddler who is a particular eater. Now, when I say particular, I don't mean picky. In fact, S eats a lot of very healthy foods. He loves making smoothies with his Tatty and they put in ingredients like bee pollen and hemp seed and flax seed and chia seeds... He drinks kombucha and thinks it's a treat. He loves cucumbers and snap peas, fresh fruits of all kinds and, like many of his peers, also likes jelly beans and ice pops and cupcakes. He knows what he likes and eats what he knows; under the proper conditions, he will try new foods. Because he is more sensitive to trying new foods and I am more sensitive when I present them at dinner time after a long day, I tend to break the one rule I said I would never break and we serve two different suppers. I always offer what we are having and we also provide an option we know he will eat. When my sister showed me a pickle taste test activity they did with their story stretcher, I wondered if doing "taste tests" might inspire and encourage S to try some new foods or some less preferred ones again. Sure enough, he was very eager to participate in our Pasta Taste Test today. He got a face drawn on for each shape pasta he tried and its expression to match his own reaction. We cooked three shapes of pasta: spaghetti, bow-ties (farfalle), and shells. I kept it pretty simple for him and just added some margarine and salt (which he does like) but you can provide sauce and even meatballs if your taste tester is interested! I also prepared our results chart in advance and glued on dry versions of each shape of pasta as a visual aid. S got a real kick out of that and wanted to put some of his pasta on the paper as well--he will surely like some of our art activities later this week! S was most comfortable licking each shape first and then eating some. He has had pasta before, but it's not one of his favorite foods by any means. As a rule of thumb, I do not make a big deal one way or another with trying new foods; it's just not worth the battle. However, many times when I don't make a big commotion and I do provide a distraction--like a great book, less preferred foods are eaten without a fight. So today at lunch, we read Pickles to Pittsburgh, and as it turns out, S quite likes bow tie shaped pasta! 

I'm not sure if he will go for the pickle taste test I have planned for later this week...but if he doesn't, I'll eat the leftovers! We have a lot more planned for our week ahead and look forward to sharing it here. Until then, happy playing!