Food, glorious food!

There are SO many books about food.  Really.  We made a whole program series called Cooking with Kids because of that fact (also because I like to cook and I thought it would be a good idea - there will be upcoming blog posts about this).  I'll try to keep it to the ones that we actually use for our food-themed story time.

Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray.  The tale of a mom who offers her kid more and more outlandish things in a desperate attempt to get her to eat her peas, to which she replies "I don't like peas".  I get the kids to do that part when I read the book - and by the end when I'm going through this mile-long list of all the things Daisy would get if she'd eat the peas, they're screaming "I don't like peas".  It's great.

Gladys Goes out to Lunch by Derek Anderson.  A gorilla smells something AMAZING, so rather than having boring old bananas, she goes out.  She tries pizza, French food, and ice cream, but none of it is what she wants til she goes back to the zoo and finds it at a food cart.  Honestly?  I've never seen this at a food cart, but ok.

I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child.  Lola is a fussy eater, and Charlie has to feed her, so he tricks her by telling her all the foods she refuses to eat are really these other things.  The book is long, and I sometimes wonder if my young kids really get it, but I love the book, and they do well listening to it as long as I ask them questions.

Gator Gumbo by Candace Fleming.  I love this book, but my coworker refuses to do it because she can't do a Cajun accent, lol.  It's a twisted take on the Little Red Hen, and I would definitely recommend it more for elementary age children.

Stone Soup by Heather Forest.  There are many authors who have done versions of this story, I just like the illustrations in this one.  We tend to do this as an interactive story, where all (or a lot of) the children get some sort of vegetable they can come up and throw in the pot when we get to it in the story.

Today is Monday by Eric Carle.  While this is a fantastic book, we actually don't use it during this story time.  Rather, we have developed a song based on the book.  We pull out a whiteboard, write out the days of the week with spaces next to them, and then ask the children what their favorite foods are.  Then we do it like the book.  Ex:

Monday: Chicken nuggets

Tuesday: Hot dogs

Wednesday: Carrots

Today is Monday. Monday, Chicken nuggets.  All you hungry children, come and eat it up.

Today is Tuesday. Tuesday, Hot dogs. Monday, Chicken nuggets. All you hungry children, come and eat it up.

Today is Wednesday. Wednesday, Carrots. Tuesday, Hot dogs. Monday, Chicken nuggets. All you hungry children, come and eat it up.

And finally, I *do* have a fingerplay I do with this theme.

5 Fat Sausages

(place one hand on top of the other and wiggle fingers to "sizzle")

5 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

4 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

3 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

2 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, 1 got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

1 fat sausages sizzling in the pan, it got hot and it went BAM! (clap)

No fat sausages sizzling in the pan.