So you’ve got a little kitchen set for your kiddo.  Here are some ways to learn with all that plastic food (you know, instead of just tripping over it)….

1. See if your child can name all the pieces of food.
2. Select food and have a pretend picnic.
3. Set up a pretend restaurant.  Take turns being the customer and waiter/waitress and cook.
4. Arrange food in rows and go shopping with a basket.  Pretend to check-out and use real money.
5. Sort food by color.
6. Sort food by food group.
7. Pick out two or more foods that start with the same letter.
8. Look for shapes.  Which foods are spheres?  Are any flat like a circle?  What about a cylinder?
9. Find and count certain foods.  How many eggs are there?  How many oranges?
10. Compare quantities.  Are there more yellow foods or green foods?  How many more lemons than tomatoes?
11. Use food to represent addition or subtraction problems.  I have four apples, then I give two to you.  How many do I have now?
12. Play “I’m thinking of a food.”  Use adjectives to describe a piece of food to each other and take turns guessing.
13. Play a memory game.  Place a few foods in front of your child.  Then have her close her eyes and take a food away.  Ask which one was removed.
14. Put a food in a sack and see if you can guess what it is just by touch.
15. Go on a food scavenger hunt.  Write down a list of foods to find (something to eat for breakfast, a vegetable, a food that starts with the letter B, etc.) and then see if your child can find them all!