Activities & Resources

Need help with getting your little one to eat more vegetables? Whether your child loves or loathes vegetables, these evidence-based activities can help them to try something new!

Show

Showing your child pictures of foods and where they come from can help your fussy eaters feel more comfortable about tasting them.

Grow

Watching vegetables grow is a fun learning activity that also helps make foods familiar.

  • Try growing cress or salad leaves on a windowsill, or watch beans sprout in a jar of salad at home.
  • Let your child look after a small vegetable patch or build a mini-raised bed and grow some vegetables from seed. Chard and rocket are super easy to grow!
  • Visit a local farm to discover where your food comes from.

Shop

Shopping with your child is a great opportunity to learn about new vegetables together.

  • Let your child help plan your weekly shop, perhaps by choosing some vegetables to your shopping list each week.
  • Buying and eating seasonal vegetables helps encourage more variety in your child’s diet. Check out this calendar to find out what is in season, and look for seasonal vegetables in the supermarket.
  • If your child can reach the shelves, let them pick out vegetables for you, and highlight their different colours, shapes and sizes.
  • If you shop online, let your child click on the vegetable they want to try.

Explore

Exploring vegetables with all your senses (vision, touch, smell & sound) makes them familiar, and prepares your child to taste them.

  • Show your child the texture, shape and firmness of different vegetables. Play a guessing game asking your child to close their eyes and guess the vegetable just by feeling it.
  • Show your child how differently vegetables smell and feel when they are raw and when they are cooked.
  • Make up songs about vegetables like ‘Old Macdonald had a farm…. On that farm, he had some carrots!’
  • Once your child has explored a vegetable and knows its name, invite them to lick or nibble it, to find out what it tastes like.

Cook

Involving your child in preparing food provides more chances to explore foods while learning from you about healthy eating.

  • Let your child be your little helper in the kitchen. Choose a simple recipe and talk through the steps. Children can help wash vegetables, put ingredients in a bowl or pass you utensils.
  • Prepare a meal with a vegetable in your child’s book or ebook. Try following one of the simple recipes in our printed books.
  • Remind your child about the foods you put on your shopping list and bought in the supermarket together, and let your child watch you turn them into a meal.

Eat

Eating the same foods together as a family gives your child the opportunity to copy what their parents and older siblings eat.

  • Eat together as a family if you can, even if this just one meal at the weekend. This could be breakfast, lunch or dinner - see what works for your family.
  • Let your child help choose the family meals for the week ahead, using our child-friendly meal planner.
  • Ensure everyone in the family gets a helping of vegetables that covers one third of their plate, to show your child what a healthy diet looks like.

Other resources

See our full list of resources to help you and your family enjoy more vegetables!