Fruits and Vegetables Preschool Theme

This Fruits and Vegetables Theme page was developed based on YOUR requests!  

There are so many activities and so little time!  

You'll find more themes to help you with your planning on my preschool themes page.

Taste testing, comparing foods by sight and feel, and math games are just a few!

You'll find many more ideas on this page.

I hope you enjoy the activities and the many ways you can introduce fruits and vegetables to your preschoolers.

This is a great theme for a week or to incorporate information about fruits and vegetables throughout the year!

Let the Theme Planning Begin!

Fruits and Vegetables Theme Art

Produce Printing

Materials Needed: Choose a large variety of produce that you can cut in half to provide different "stamp" shapes for the children to use with paint! Some that we have used are apples, star fruit, potatoes (that we cut shapes into!). For best results, only provide a very shallow amount of paint in the tray so that the paint does not go on the produce too thickly.

Corn on the Cob Painting

Roll corn cobs in a tray of shallow paint and then roll onto paper! Very fun!

Produce Collages

Materials Needed: Provide advertisement flyers from local supermarkets, glue sticks, scissors and construction paper. The children cut out and glue their favorites on the construction paper.

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Fruit and Vegetables Theme Block Center Idea

Farming

Provide farm type trucks, toy farm, plastic grass and plastic produce for the children to use in the block area.

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Circle Time Ideas

Circle Time is such a great time for children to learn the social skills of being together as a large group AND to learn more about your theme!

Fruit or Vegetable?

Materials Needed: Chart paper, tape and marker.

Hang a chart on the wall at Circle Time. Make 2 columns on the paper and label one Fruit and one Vegetable.

Ask the children to name some of each and list them on the proper side.

Another way to do this is to bring some real produce and ask the children to name what each is and then ask them to determine which it is.

Flannel Board Story Time

Read the story, Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert.

In advance, draw or cut out a picture of each item from the story, laminate and place velcro on the back.

Hand out the pieces, one to each child.

As you read each part, the child places their piece on the flannel board or on a flannel soup pot on the flannel board!

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Snack Recipe Ideas to Cook Up for Your Theme!

Cooking with children helps develop their math skills and helps them to learn how to follow directions. It also allows for some great conversation! Ask many questions while cooking with your children to encourage conversation! Be sure to ask specific themed questions while making these fun snacks!

Recipes

There are so many recipes and ideas to use produce with. Go with what you enjoy and the children enjoy!

• Make a banana boat--the children slice bananas in half and then lengthwise and add apple pieces for a mast
• Make fruit salad.
• Make a veggie tray.
• Provide a variety of fruits and/or a variety of vegetables and let them create a design with them before eating snack!
• One year we asked each child to bring in a pre-cooked vegetable. We placed them all in a crock pot with vegetable broth and heated it during the morning for a wonderful Friendship Soup to share at snack time!

For more ideas, check out my Healthy Snacks page which has 18 more cooking ideas for your classroom!

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Idea to Transform Your Dramatic Play Area

Farm Stand

Turn your dramatic play area into a stand!

Provide shopping baskets, plastic fruits and vegetables, a cash register and play money, grocery bags, paper, pencils (for shopping lists), etc.

Or, add REAL fruits and veggies to your farm stand!

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Idea for Your Easel!

Carrot Top Painting

We've used carrots that have the fern on the tops.

Hold from the carrot and use the ferns to paint with!

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Large Group Games 

To Help the Children Build Their Muscles While They Have Fun Together!

Acting Out the Growing Cycles

Encourage the children to act out the growing cycles of different types of produce...from seed, to leaf, to flower to a small pumpkin to a big huge pumpkin rolling down the hill!

Or, from a seed, to a sprout, to a tree to small apples growing to us jumping up to pick apples!

You get the idea!

Fruit, Fruit, Veggie!

Play this like Duck, Duck Goose!

You could get more specific and say orange, orange, cucumber!

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Ideas for Your Library

Book Suggestions for the Library

(I LOVE Amazon, and some of the links below will take you to the Amazon website.  If you do choose to purchase yours through Amazon, they do send me a few cents--which supports my coffee habit! )

The Carrot Seed 60th Anniversary Edition by Ruth Krauss

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

Gregory, the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat

Growing Vegetable Soup (Voyager Books) by Lois Ehlert

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Math Activities

To Help Your Preschoolers Develop Their Math Skills and the Small Muscles in Their Hands!

Seed and/or Produce Counting

Materials: Produce or seeds to count, muffin tins with numbers 1-12 in each tin.

The children can count out and sort the correct number of seeds from fruit into the tins or provide small veggies (such as grape or cherry tomatoes) or cut up cucumbers to sort!

Produce Sorting

Provide real or play produce. Include several of each different color (banana, lemon, star fruit; potato, kiwi, etc.).  Also provide many small bins or colored bowls to match the colors of produce you have.

The children sort by color. They may also decide to sort by shape, by type of produce, etc.

Hi-Ho Cherry-O

I love any "excuse" of a theme to play this game! Click Here for More Details!

Back to Basics

Manipulatives don't always have to be made new each week. Be sure to include the basics of lacing, puzzles and other fine motor activities. If you have lacing cards or puzzles that are theme related, that's great! If not, that's great, too!

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Music and Movement Activities

To Get Your Preschoolers Movin' and Groovin'!

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Activities for Your Sand and Water Table

What Do I Feel?

Encourage the children to feel into a bag or box and guess which piece of produce you have placed in it!

You can show them all first and help them to name them and then see if they can remember based on how they feel.

What Do I Smell?

After doing the above activity, cut each item in half, place in a ziploc baggie and then place in a brown paper lunch bag.

Have the children smell the bags and see if they can guess what each item is based on their smell!

Fruity Water Play

Add a fruit scent to your water table (use strawberry extract, lemon extract, orange, etc.). You could also color the water to match the scent!

Garden Harvest

Place whole vegetables in your sensory table with soil, scoops, and sifters. In the past I've added beets and carrots (with the ferns still on them), potatoes, celery, etc.

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Fruits and Vegetables Theme Science Activities for Your Preschool Scientists in Training!

Grow Popcorn! Really, this is wicked awesome!!!

The preschoolers planted a POPCORN KERNEL in dirt in a Ziploc baggie, watered it, and then taped it to a window. They sprouted! This picture is the result of taking the sprouted kernels home and planting them in the ground (just regular dirt in their yard)...so cool!

Make Your Own Mr. Potato Head!

Materials: One white potato per student, googly eyes, craft glue, grass seed and a spray bottle of water.

In advance, cut about 1/4 inch off the top of each potato. Scoop out a little of the potato.

The children glue eyes (and you can add items for a nose, mouth, etc.) on the front of the potato.

They then sprinkle grass seed on the top part that you cut out and spray with water.

They should sprout pretty quickly if you keep them moist.

Taste Testing!

Of course! We've had one day for fruits and another day for vegetables. Try different types of each, some familiar to the children and some not. I suggest, if you haven't already, star fruit, kiwi and any veggies with ranch dip!

EXTENSION: Make a chart with a picture or drawing of each type that you try going across the top and the children's names going down the left side. The children can add a smiley face or a sad face next to their name under each one!

Sequencing

Print of growing cycles of different types of produce (you can find these online or in teaching/learning stores). Have them available for the children to put in order in the science center.

VARIATION: You could provide one each day (one fruit and one vegetable). Place the growing cycle cards of each one and an actual fruit and vegetable.

Free Exploration and Journaling

Each day, provide a few pieces of produce that are cut open, a magnifying glass and home made journals (simply construction paper as a cover with plain white paper inside) and crayons.

Encourage the children to check out the produce and draw/journal what they observe. Are there seeds? Does is smell good or bad? What color is it?

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Writing Activity Idea for Your Fruits and Vegetables Theme

Our Produce Book

Hang pictures or have books available of the different types of produce. Encourage the children to draw a picture of their favorite. Label it with their name and make a class book out of it!

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Miscellaneous Activities for Your Fruits and Vegetables Theme

Field Trips

Visit a farm, a farmers' market, a neighbor to the school who has a garden or a produce center of a local supermarket!

Classroom Visitors

Invite a parent or neighbor who gardens to come in with some of their harvest!

Invite a farmer or a local grocer.

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Other pages you might like:

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Go to the Main Themes page for more theme ideas!

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