This lesson was an extension of the Cozy Minestrone soup Travis and I made at the beginning of the month from Raddish Kids. I didn’t do the lesson directly in conjunction with the recipe, as I wanted Travis to focus on the food and fun of cooking. But it made for a couple of cute projects over the course of a week, after the fact! If you prefer, you can do this lesson first, and cook Cozy Minestrone after.

First, Travis and I sat down to name all the colors of the rainbow. For each, I produced a square of matching construction paper. Next I told him we’d brainstorm fruits and veggies for each color. We set a timer for 30 seconds for each; Travis was in charge of the timer and loved this part!

At the end, we had a few items for most colors…

…but tons on the green. Clearly green “won” and we talked about why this might be.

Now we looked at an infographic describing what gives each fruit or veggie its color, and what that corresponded to in terms of health.

Kids can also watch a fun description of phytonutrients. Finally, we had a printout from Raddish, that we can refer back to later.

Next, we went through a grocery flier and looked for fruits and veggies.

We pasted these into a collage that went up on a the fridge – a great visual reminder of foods we aim to eat each week!

Finally, I asked Travis to think of what colors he’d eaten that day. Orange for papayas, green for cucumbers, etc. We kept a running tally, and kept it up over the course of a week. At the end, we could see that the blues and purples were most lacking in his diet, but he scored quite well elsewhere!

Overall, this lesson was a great intro to nutrients for a preschooler. The lesson plan includes tons more detail for big kids, so do be sure to check out Raddish for yourself!