Gardening and Nutrition Experiences
for the Young Child
Sensory exploration:
The sensory exploration introduces children to the target vegetable through open and safe exploration using all their senses.
Children become more familiar with the vegetable as they smell, touch, shake, listen, and look at the target vegetable prior to tasting either the raw food or the prepared recipe.
For example, when exploring the bell pepper, children shook the peppers, touched the smooth pepper skin; listened to the crisp pepper slices snap or crunch, smelled, sliced, compared different colored peppers, identified the parts, explored the seeds, described their experiences, and tasted the raw pepper slices.
Children have a more enriching experience when teachers and caregivers encourage handling and investigation of each vegetable.
