Exploring food doesn’t just need to take place in the kitchen. Get Fresh at home with our speaking games and activities for parents of children aged 7–11 years old.

Preparing food and eating healthily are basic life skills – we all need food to live! Learning about food encourages children to take responsibility for what they eat and their health. It also provides you with many fun opportunities to enjoy preparing, cooking and eating healthy fresh food together.

Exploring food, however, doesn’t just belong in the kitchen. It can also help your child to learn other skills in a fun and practical way. They use maths to measure ingredients and work out costs, develop dexterity and practical skills when using cooking equipment, and learn how to plan and make decisions and choices. Perhaps the simplest way to experiment with food is to talk about it! Discussing food can spark an interest in fresh ingredients and new recipe ideas whilst building important language skills.

It’s time to talk fresh!

Talking about food
If you have ever watched chefs tasting food on TV, you’ll know there are hundreds of words that can be used to describe the food we eat. Encourage your child to extend their vocabulary by asking them to describe:

• foods they like and dislike
• raw ingredients they use
• how ingredients change as they cook
• finished foods they have made.

Get Set to Eat Fresh word bank

Appearance

• What colour and size is it?
• What does it look like from the inside and outside?

 brown   golden   light   dark   glossy   soggy   mashed   lumpy   minced   thick   fatty

Aroma

• What does it smell like?

caramel   spicy   savoury   fresh   garlic   malty   beefy   citrus   fried   herby   yeasty

Texture

• What does it feel like in the mouth when you chew it or eat it?

doughy   crisp   flaky   greasy   hard   lumpy   powdery   smooth   tender   tough   waxy   dry   crumbly   gritty   moist   rubbery   sticky   thick   chewy   crunchy   juicy

Flavour

• Is it sweet, salty, sour or bitter?

acidic   bland   fruity   spicy   sharp   tangy   watery   tart   weak   buttery   sweet

What am I?
Build on new words by playing the following guessing game with your child. Take it in turns to describe a food and guess what it is, for example:

• ‘I am a food that is doughy, golden brown, yeasty… What am I?’ (bread)
• ‘I am a food that is crunchy, green, juicy, waxy… What am I?’ (an apple)

Food investigators
When you’re out shopping with your child, get talking and become food investigators!

• Where does the food we buy come from? (look at labels and supermarket shelves)
• How is the food grown or made?
• How many types of one food can you find? (for example, how many different varieties of potato or apple) 

Ask your child to help you divide the contents of your shopping basket into food that comes from the different parts of plants (roots, fruits, stems and so on).

 
If after all that food talk you feel ready to get cooking - how about experimenting with these child-friendly recipes?

GET COOKING – Simple ingredients

GET COOKING – Funny face sandwiches

GET COOKING - Couscous two ways