Fall Harvest Fun: Getting Kids Excited About Produce

Fall is harvest season with beautiful fresh produce of every color and variety in stores, at farm stands, and in our gardens.  What better time to get kids interested in broadening their tastes? Young kids are often not naturally excited about eating fruits and vegetables, no matter how hard we try.  But as every parent knows - a new context can change everything!

Here are a few of our favorite harvest activities to help kids get interested in trying new things.

Visit the Source

Plan a visit to your local apple orchard, pumpkin patch, or even a neighbor’s garden.  Show your kids how each item grows.  Squash, potatoes, apples, peaches, and more each grow in a unique way.  Feel the textures of each food and talk about the different tastes.   Let your kids help pick some to bring home, and talk about how excited you are to share them. 

Help with Shopping and Prep

Take your kids to a farmer’s market or local grocery store and pick out a few seasonal items.  Choose together what foods you could make.  Pumpkin muffins, zucchini bread, peaches on cereal, or homemade applesauce.  Then work together to wash, cut, and prepare the foods.  Smelling, touching, and experiencing new foods is a whole sensory experience!

Learn About Harvest

Find some books at your local library that talk about harvest, or certain foods that are in season during the Fall.  Sometimes reading a book about something can make kids want to try it themselves.  Here are a few of our favorites:

“Apple Farmer Annie” by Monica Wellington
“Too Many Pumpkins” by Linda White
"Diana's White House Garden" by Elisa Lynn Carbon
“Miguel’s Community Garden” by JaNay Brown-Wood
“The Last Stand” by Antwan Eady
“Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter” by Eugenie Doyle
“Before We Eat: From Farm to Table” by Pat Brisson
“Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt” by Kate Messner
“Applesauce Day” by Lisa J. Amstutz

Eat Outside

Sometimes a new context helps kids be more open-minded to eating new items.  Eat the apples at the orchard, try a veggie fresh from the garden.  Or have a picnic outside!  Even just having your kids sit outside and play or swing while eating some cut up veggies might help them be less picky.

Now after all this, your kids may not be excited about eating squash, spinach, or beets.  But hopefully the carrot sticks, apples, and potatoes will be a big hit!  And every taste and try gets kids more familiar with healthy foods that they can learn to love.