Where does food come from?

Cooking and food-related activities are sure hits when teaching kids. It can be a little tiring for teacher though, especially since you have to keep in mind the kids safety, as well as the fact that some kids have food allergies.

One activity I enjoy doing is a food sorting game. This can tackle a wide range of topics, depending on the level of difficulty. For example, the food sorting game can focus on shapes by having kids check out what’s in their lunch boxes and grouping them together like this:

For older kids, you can have them classify it by taste (i.e. sweet, salty, bitter, sour), type (go, grow, and glow) but the most fun I have experienced was when I asked them to identify where food comes from.

What I did was had the kids bring in some of their favorite food (some brought in the real thing, while others brought photos only).  On my table, I put a plastic pig, cow, chicken, and plant/tree. We then had a taste test-slash-learning activity. After sampling some of the food, we placed them in the appropriate column. The simple ones were the obvious ones: fried chicken, eggs, milk. Fruits and vegetables were easily associated with plants as well. Burgers, hotdogs, and barbeque was a little more difficult for them, but they were able to understand it quickly. What they had a hard time grasping was that rice, bread, nuts and even chocolate came from plants. I showed them pictures of wheat fields and explained that when the plant grew, it was harvested and milled so rice could be produced. I also showed them pictures of trees like the cashew tree and other flowering plants where nuts and cacao seeds would come from.

cashew tree in Coron, Palawan

cacao tree in Bali (Photo: “cacao fruits” by Dennis Tang, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved). Cacao trees grow in different parts of the world, the largest of which is in northwestern South America. Africa and South East Asia, including the Philippines, also produce a large number of cacao plants. The irvingia gabonesis, an African tree, is an example of where chocolates come from.

The activity was not just an eye-opener for the kids, but it was also a laugh fest for us all. Some of my favorite comments during the activity:

Teacher: Where do hotdogs come from?    Kids: Doggies teacher!

Teacher: Where does bacon come from?   Kids: The freezer!

My all time favorite:

Teacher: Where does a burger come from? Kids: (in unison) Jollibee!!!!

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