C is for...(part 1)

Today was our first half of foods that start with C. We did not work with the actual letter yet (that part is for tomorrow) but had lots of fun exploring so many different foods.

We started with our cream cheese 'snowmen'. I loaded their trays with a few different foods that started with C: Corn(frozen so it would stick easier), carrots (shredded) and cheese(shredded). We talked about each one, it's color, texture etc, and Jocie would tell us which letter they started with. Then I got out the cream cheese. Of course, no one wanted to touch the cream cheese, so I got the job of making it into balls and stacking them for both kiddos. We had one extra little bit and Mew insisted I make him a flat hat to put on his snowman. So the 'snowmen' made, they set to work decorating.

Mew ate a lot of the cheese(one of his favorites) and some of the carrot shreds. He was so serious about decorating though and trying so hard NOT to get his hands against the cream cheese at all! When he finished, he did take a tad of the cream cheese. He was less than thrilled with the taste.

Jocie did not do much tasting or eating at all. She was concentrating SO hard though to get her snowman decorated and like Mew, did NOT want to touch the cream cheese. After she finished, she asked if she could add sprinkles to him like it was snowing. Since sprinkles do NOT start with C, I asked if she would rather use Cocoa (I actually used Ovaltine but we won't tell them that!). She was so excited and went about sprinkling her 'brown snow' all about. she was trying to get every area covered so as little white showed as possible. She DID taste the Ovaltine and really liked that (or course!)

We took a break and did other daily activities, but returned to the table for more food play. Jocie now asks several times a day if and when we will do more! This time, our main food was 'cool whip. which I actually substituted with spray ready whip (shhhh- we still called it cool whip so it would start with C). I sprayed each of their trays, making the first letter of their names and then some random designs. I tried to get them to dive in, but they were both unsure, so I gave them each a cookie(yea a yummy C food they already LIKE!!!)

Mew was still not sure. he kept moving his tray around looking at the 'yuk' in front of him. But as soon as Jocie dipped her cookie in and let him know it was yummy, he followed suit. He mainly just played with the cookie. Moving it around and collecting as much as he could on it. He took a small taste but said it wasn't very good.

Jocie didn't wait too long before she put a finger in a took a taste. (she is getting so brave tasting lately..I am so proud of her!!! BIG STEP- now if we could get more EATING haha) Then she dipped in her cookie and took a bite. YUMMY!! She decided it might be fun to play in it with her hands so she started to swirl them around on the tray. She was not too happy with how it felt on her hand but she tried so hard to play it off, laughing and giggling till she couldn't stand it anymore and the tears started. I quickly grabbed her a towel to wipe off on and she recovered pretty quickly. Needless to say though, that was about the end of that activity

We also played with a coconut. But the only FUN part of that for them was drawing faces on it before hand. The coconut milk was not very good (Jocie tried a bit and was NOT HAPPY- more tears) so we opened it up, checked it out and talked about how it looked and felt and just ended the activity there.