One of the things we’re focusing on in our house this month is the fact that not everyone enjoys the good food my kids get to eat every day – and that there are simple ways to make a difference!
My kids are young (6, 4, 3, and 1 month old), but there are easy things to do even with this age group. With a one-month-old, we’re keeping it simple: donating to our local food pantry, talking about the importance of not wasting food (something they understand better after growing a garden this summer and seeing how long it takes for food to grow!), and use the color orange to keep the topic present in your home!
Here are a few orange-themed crafts you might want to try with your kids:
- Decorate pumpkins with stickers or Sharpie pens – you can cut the peel off afterwards and cook and eat it!
- Decorate pumpkin cut-outs
- Make orange play dough – here’s our favorite play dough recipe!\
- Add pumpkin or summer squash to some of your favorite recipes. We made lasagna with pumpkin added to the red sauce on Wednesday, and it was delicious!
Check out more fantastic ideas on these blogs – and link up any ideas you have!
MaryAnne lives is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
I think a garden is a great idea to teach about how precious food is. Thanks for building hunger awareness.
Great ideas. And pumpkin lasagna sounds fabulous!
The pumpkin adds a subtle sweetness to the lasagna that I really like!
I am impressed with how you find time and energy to participate in blog campaigns. Not wasting food is rather important to me, that’s why we have a rule of not playing with food items. We also contribute to local food bank and Second Harvest campaigns.
Ugh – we waste way too much food. I wish we could shop more often; I find that we waste less produce that way, but it just isn’t practical. I do try to teach the kids to only take as much as they will eat and not waste food in that way. We donate to our local food pantry monthly; there is a local organization that goes door to door once a month to collect food so that makes it easy. WE just put the food in a bag on our front steps. I do make sure to talk to the kids about why we do that.
I love how pointing out how long it takes for food to grow makes your kids more aware of wasting! Great lesson, and I love how you’re giving back, too.
We’re still working on our kids do not wasting food. Maybe if I could successfully grow a garden…..
I’ll have to check out some of these links. What a great lesson to teach your kids, it’s never too early for that message.