Virtual Program: Food Art for Kids

 Food Art for Kids was a virtual program I was really excited about doing, but it definitely took the most work and prep out of all the virtual programs thus far. It was a challenge and out of my element, but I think it came together well and it's always good to challenge ourselves as librarians and educators. 

Since there were so many great ideas to choose from on what food art to make, I knew I wanted to make sure I included really easy options and more difficult ones so this could be for kids of all ages and for parents who wanted to give it a try. I also wanted to narrow it down to a theme and came up with the idea of food based on children's books. This theme made the program so much fun to show. 

There are so many examples online and some really great holiday ideas too. 

I started off explaining a little bit about food art and how you can play around with food shapes, get your kids to eat healthy foods, and make a nice surprise for snacks and parties. 

The books I used to base around my food art were The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Cat in the Hat, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and Rainbow Fish. All classics and all fun to use as inspiration to make some food art. 

Since it is around Halloween, I also added a simple pumpkin food art craft that uses a clementine and celery. 

This was a virtual program that allowed me to try something I would have avoided doing for an in-person program because it involves food and I wouldn't want to worry about food allergies and germs when food is involved. 

Toddler Art: Rainbow Fish

July's Toddler Art theme was a Rainbow Fish theme. I changed the program format from three crafts to two crafts and a book to get more reading in there. This turned out to be a great change because both the parents and kids enjoyed the book and we still kept the fundamental idea of sensory crafts. 

I like the idea of tying in crafts and picture books together and found that I didn't have to rely on finding pairings online, but that I could come up with my own craft ideas if I loved the book and wanted to use it. I will usually base the craft on characters/animals in the book, the style of illustration used, and/or if anything was made or crafted in the story. 

Rainbow Fish was a perfect way to try out the one book, two sensory crafts switch. 

I'm sure you are already familiar with this classic book, especially if you are in any teaching profession, but just in case, The Rainbow Fish is about a beautiful, shiny fish who after a little hesitation shares his scales with his friends. 

Even though I'm sure the group has heard this story before, they had no problem listening to it again and awing over the shiny illustrations. 

Segueing into our crafts, we of course made Rainbow Fish and his wise Octopus friend. 

For Rainbow Fish, celery was used as stampers to make Rainbow Fish's scales. We used all the colors of the rainbow, with some kids going from red to purple and others not having any pattern to their scales. The celery was interesting for the kids to smell, some mistaking it for cucumber, and they practiced stamping neatly onto their fish.

For Octopus, fruit loops and white paint were used to make the suckers on each of his eight legs. Some in the group used all fruit loops, and ate some too, while others used their fingertips to make white prints. 

This was another fun time and reassured me that adding a book was a good idea.