While we usually teach kids not to play with their food, there\’s some fun, easy experiments you can do to help teach kids where their food comes from and how it grows.
Colorful celery
Take a stick of celery, and leave it in a glass of water with a few drops of food colouring added. Slowly, the colour will start to creep up the celery stalk until it starts to dye the leaves. This is a great conversation starter for a range of topics: why we need to water our plants, how additives affect our food, etc.
Germinating seeds and potato peelings
Potato peelings with eyes will start to grow if left in a dish in good sunlight; for other seeds, place them against the side of a glass filled with damp cotton wool. You can use this as a conversation starter for a discussion of where our food comes from, how our stomach acid breaks things down, or even for a basic, child-friendly discussion of fertility.
Making raisins and sultanas
Get a baking tray, and some carefully dried grapes (wet grapes will rot). Red grapes will make raisins, white grapes will make sultanas. Leave them in a sunny spot for three days, covered by a pillowcase, paper towels or something that won\’t blow away. Remove any that are rotting or mouldy; the rest will dry out and caramelise into raisins and sultanas. This can be a conversation starter for discussions of how water evaporates, different tastes, how different fruits and vegetables have different varieties, sugar levels in fruit, etc.
DIY butter
Half fill a jar with double cream, and close the lid. Let it get to room temperature, and then start shaking vigorously until you feel a ball form. It\’ll taste quite different to store bought butter, making it a great starting point for a discussion of additives; explaining that the fat has clumped together to make butter is a great starting point for discussions of the different parts which make up our food.