Sensory Food Exploration Activities following the Food Hierarchy

These are some examples of some activities to do with your child in order to make sure she/he:

TOLERATES BEING AROUND THE NEW/NON-PREFERRED FOOD:

1. describe the properties of the food while it is in front of you
2. you manipulate food in a creative/educational way near/in front of child
3. child watches food preparation because it is interesting
4. food is passed in front of child; directly in front of face
5. place food on a napkin or table next to child and move closer to child as tolerates (without drawing attention to this, over the course of the meal)
6. place food on edge of plate and move closer as tolerates

INTERACTION:

1. have child pass food container to another
2. have child serve self or another family member with a utensil
3. child helps with food preparation using utensils
4. child stirs with a utensil or other food (e.g. pretzel rod)
5. child manipulates outer wrapper
6. child pushes one food with another food (making a train)
7. child puts one food into another (making faces, making b-day cakes with candles)
8. child blows on food to tip it over or move along the plate/surface

SMELL:

1. have child in kitchen while food is being cooked
2. helps prepare foods with utensils or hands
3. peeling, cutting, stirring
4. waving food in front of face ( mimicking fans, airplanes, wiggle worms, “teaching physics of food”)
5. bringing the food near the nose (make mustaches, whiskers, beards, lipstick, clown noses)
6. model leaning down and exaggerating smelling (“Hmmm…Ahhh”)

TOUCH:

1. building with food (making trains, steps, bridges, rainbows, letters, shapes)
2. painting with foods (shapes, letters, pictures, faces, etc)
3. driving foods and driving foods under other foods (peanuts make great boats and cars)
4. inch worm up the hand, arm, shoulder, cheeks, etc
5. driving to the cave (mouth)
6. kissing foods, foods kissing you
7. pretending the food is lipstick, rubbing food on lips
8. flicking onto plate, into bowl
9. serving yourself with your hands
10. scraping with hands into trash; throwing away foods on the table
11. making food into objects you can wear (earrings, glasses, necklace, bows in hair, rings, etc)
12. smashing, crunching, breaking, ripping, tearing with hands
13. cookie cutters
14. give food hugs
15. tapping the food on the teeth
16. balancing the food on your nose
17. hanging the food from lower lip
18. holding food on/above your upper lip with no hands
19. sliding down the slide/ski slope (= your nose)
20. sticking the food to parts of the body (forehead, cheek, hand, nose, chin)

TASTE:

1. being a puppy with a bone
2. holding food in teeth, no hands
3. kissing food
4. driving into mouth
5. blowing out of mouth
6. hold in teeth then push out with tongue
7. licking (“make it wet, like a puppy does”, lick it like an ice-cream cone)
8. listen to the noises it makes when biting/crunching
9. imitate brushing teeth with food
10. making a popping noise pulling foods out of mouth
11. exaggerated chewing with noise and head movement
12. licking food from fingers
13. hold bite of food in back teeth, spit out
14. bite off small pieces, then spit out quickly
15. touch to tip of tongue fast
16. playing peek-a-boo on tongue
17. counting chews
18. “1, 2, 3” everyone licks, bites etc

(ideas borrowed from multiple online sources)