Day 6 - Food Blocks

Worst craft yet! Mom always said not to play with my food, but I never listened to her. I think it would work better for an older child, or possibly that today was just not a good one to try it out. She did have half a small Chick Fil A strawberry milk shake which I thick has made her hyper out of her mind. (Never again!)

Today I was supposed to do a craft using fruit from my refrigerator. I decided to take apples, oranges and carrots; cut them into blocks. She loves building all kinds of things with her wooden building blocks and she likes to help us build things with her Lincoln logs. Interestingly in 1830 the same man who gave us kindergarten introduced the world to a set of wooden building blocks for children. These same blocks inspired Frank Loyd Wright to become an architect[1].

While LeeAnn ran off her excess energy in the living room I cut the fruit and carrots into squared rectangles. We then worked on putting together a building, or tried to. She ate half the building material, which I didn’t mind, and then announced “I’m done” halfway through. Not a stunning success. She did enjoy eating it afterwards. I used the oranges as fields of fruit plants by peeling off the outer skin and laying it spread out in rows. She ate them before I could get a picture.

As I said it did not work out well to day, but I think it would work better in a different setting. You could cut out bread block and let the kids build sandwich towns, or do the same with pancakes/waffles and fruit. Slightly older kids may respond better to this project as well.

Fruit Building Blocks

Supplies:

Apples

Carrots

Peanut Butter

Lemon Juice

Peeler

Knife

Cutting Board

Small bowl

Butter Knife

Plate

Instructions:

1. Peel apples and carrots, cut them into cubes and long rectangles. Put into a small bowl and cover with a 1-2 tsp of lemon juice, mix to coat. This keeps the apples from turning brown.

1. Spread some of the Peanut Butter on the plate as a base for the structure and let the kids build. They can try using the Peanut butter as cement, but wet fruit is slippery. It’s best to smear it on the fruit, and then place the fruit onto the structure.
2. You can get creative and build a whole town, create carrot people and animals with jam’s lakes. You’re only limited by your children’s attention span.
3. Photograph you completed structure if desired, the have fun and dig in!

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[1] http://www.google.com/#q=history+of+toy+building+blocks&hl=en&sa=X&tbs=tl:1,tll:1800,tlh:1849&prmd=ivns&ei=N_-pTci6BKLp0gGt8eT5CA&ved=0CCwQyQEoBA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=7e7d8e26231a088d