Cabin fever? Make a fruit rainbow with your kids.

Cabin fever? Make a fruit rainbow with your kids.

A certain number of days into winter, it can be hard to break my kids free of their macaroni-and-cheese/Netflix daze. My family’s magic cure for cabin fever doldrums?

Pomegranates.


Pomegranates are strange, beautiful, sweet, juicy, complicated fruits that take forever to open up and eat. A perfect provocation for bored kids.

Winter time can seem like a barren wasteland when it comes to colorful fruits and vegetables, but it’s not. Try brainstorming a rainbow of foods with your kids, and then eat one a week. You can track the colors you’ve consumed by making a little bit of home-dyed artwork for each food. Keep a small bowl of pomegranate (or orange, or blueberry) juice set aside until after snack time. Your kids can dip a small square of white tissue paper into the juice to dye it. Crumple up the dried tissue paper squares and glue them onto a larger piece of paper or cardstock to make a rainbow.

Here are some more ideas for your rainbow:
Orange: Clementine oranges, navel oranges, garnet yams
Yellow: Turmeric – a wonderful yellow spice that’s great in soups and stir-fries. Mix a little bit of turmeric with water for a beautiful, bright yellow dye.
Green: Spinach – sandwich a leaf of spinach between two pieces of tissue paper. Roll a quarter firmly over the sandwich, and you will see green lines appear. Make a pattern:
Blue: Tiny frozen blueberries are so good in muffins and pancakes. Or make blueberry applesauce by boiling 1 cup of blueberries with 5 chopped apples. Yum!
Purples and pinks: Frozen berries – blackberries and raspberries in particular – are such a treat in the winter. Try stirring them into your oatmeal or make a smoothie with 1 cup orange juice, 1 banana, and 1 cup frozen berries.

For more edible science experiments you can try with your kids at home, check out my forthcoming book, Awesome Kitchen Science Experiments for Kids: 50 STEAM Projects You Can Eat!

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