Last year, I had the privilege of speaking to 24 of my daughter’s classmates at her Montessori school about nutrition.  I wanted to make it fun, and simple, as the audience consisted of 3, 4 and 5 year olds.

One of the most basic ways to teach children about healthy eating is to make it fun, and many people in our field talk about eating a rainbow a day.  There are even little games, and worksheets online to print out, to make it fun for your children.  (here is a great one designed by the Children’s Museum of San Jose).

This morning, my husband was telling me how he tells so many people about my small visit to the classroom, and he usually gets an enthusiastic response from the adult he is telling the story to.

To me, I felt like everyone has heard of eat a rainbow – but turns out, they haven’t.  It’s a simple, fun way to engage your children in understanding how to make good food choices.

In any case, I explained that foods have vitamins, and the different colors of food represent different nutrients.  We went around the circle, and I asked each child to name their favorite food that is each color.  So we went around and I asked for red foods – and got a plethora of answers.  Then blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and lastly white.  Most of the time, the children named off fruits and vegetables, but when we got to white, I did get “ice cream” as an answer.  🙂

In any case, asking your child to think of what colors they ate that day (and they have to be natural, not artificial colors) is a fun exercise to do.  I’ve found when children can take ownership of their health, because they innately have a drive to be strong, they enjoy the process and beam with pride as they are telling you what they had that day.

Which color is YOUR favorite??  Mine would have to be green.