Let’s go shopping Peppa

Week 1

We are now on to our 4^th book of the year for Easy Peasy Pods and are now reading Let’s go shopping Peppa. This book is about Peppa’s trip to the supermarket to get food for lunch and we are using this book to explore the theme of healthy eating with our parent and child residents.

To start the session we read through the book with the mums and their babies, discovering what Peppa and her family bought for their lunch and what surprise they found in their trolley when they got to the checkout! This is a great book to read with the children as the fun colourful images keep their interest whilst the story is simple and easy for them to read as they get older and learn to read by themselves, as Peppa Pig is a character that most children know this also helps to keep them interested in the story!

For our first activity for this book we have had fun with some messy play making edible finger paints! This involved using plain yogurt and food colouring which the children enjoyed mixing to their favourite colours. Once they had mixed the colours they wanted the children enjoyed using these ‘paints’ to make marks on paper and pictures for their parents.

This was a fun sensory activity for the little ones as it gave them the opportunity to get their hands stuck in to the paint and as we used yogurt as the base the parents didn’t have to worry about this going near their mouths, which the children very much enjoyed also having a taste of! The children also had the opportunity to learn about different colours by using food colouring to turn the yogurt in to different colours, and for our youngest children in the session they also had a chance to try some different foods they hadn’t tasted before!

 

Week 2

This week our mums and babies have been getting to grips with jelly, cream and bananas!

We made up some jelly, poured out some cream and mashed some bananas and let the little ones get stuck in! Messy play is a great activity for little ones to engage in as it gives them a chance to explore different things in their world using multiple senses.

With using these various food items they got to experience the feeling of squishing jelly through their fingers; the different textures between the jelly, cream and banana, different smells and tastes and what each different food looks like.

Messy play has also been a good opportunity for the children to interact with each other as it has given our younger babies a chance to get involved and interact with some of the older children who attend the sessions.

 

Week 3

For our session this week we have been using Angel Delight in messy play. This has been another fun food for the little ones to get their hands on and also made a very tasty treat.

We made up some angel delight and set this out in our messy play trays to give the little ones the chance to really explore this, getting this between their fingers, toes and even rolling around in it.

This was another new experience for our younger babies as it gave them something new to try. As well as a new taste for them this was also a new texture for them to feel and a new smell as it was strawberry flavour.

 

Week 4

We decided to incorporate a treat in to this week’s activity as in the book Peppa and her family get a treat of a chocolate cake at the end of their shopping trip and we thought ice cream would be nice as it had been so hot recently.

After reading through the book with the little ones we got out our messy play trays and placed scoops of ice cream in the centre for the children to play with. At first they were not too sure of this and even made efforts to not put their feet in the cold ice cream however they soon got used to this and then had great fun squashing the ice cream between their fingers and toes. We also bought some spoons along so that the children (and mums) can enjoy eating some of the ice cream. We decided to get Neapolitan ice cream so there were 3 different flavours for the children to enjoy; strawberry, chocolate and vanilla! This was a nice refreshing treat for the mums and babies to enjoy after all the hot weather and also gave the children the opportunity to feel a new sensation, coldness!

 

Week 5

For this week in Easy Peasy Pods we have continued exploring food through play and this week have been playing with whipped cream. After reading through the book with our mums and babies we got out our messy play trays again!

Our youngest resident had a brilliant time laying in the tray and rolling around in the cream. He had fun exploring the cool creamy texture with his hands and rolling around and trying another new flavour, which he very much enjoyed!

Messy play has been a great sensory experience for our little ones over the last few weeks as they have had the chance to explore new things using various senses; such as different textures, smells and tastes.

 

Week 6

For our final week of Let’s go shopping Peppa we have used more messy play to explore various different foods.

We read through the book again with the mums and babies, learning more about the different foods that Peppa and her family buy at the supermarket. We then set up our messy play trays and laid out various different foods for the little ones to get their hands stuck in to.

For our younger babies we had a variety of different purees such as sweet potato, mango, carrots and a mix of green vegetables. For the older ones we had peaches, custard, rice pudding, mushy peas and spaghetti.

The children loved this and had a great time squashing different foods and textures in their hands, and trying different foods too!

This was our last week of messy play with food and we have had such fun with this book that we will be incorporating more messy play in to the next few books we explore.