Written by: Gwyneth Joyce, MOT, OTR/L

Holidays can be a great time to engage in food exploration in themed ways. For St. Patrick’s Day, I think of the color green and rainbows! This leaves us with so many options of how we can explore foods.

With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, this gives us a great opportunity to add a little holiday magic to our mealtimes and food exploration. These activities can be great to do at home, at school, or in therapy! Holiday-themed food exploration can be a fun way to increase curiosity about foods and support sensory exploration, and fun, while learning about and interacting with foods. These ideas can help children to engage in sensory exploration through visuals like colors, and textures, and differing flavors, in a fun way!

Here are some Saint Patrick’s Day–inspired food activities that kids will love:

Build a Rainbow Snack Plate:
This can be done with familiar and new foods to increase comfort and exploration. You can help your child explore foods while maintaining regulation by providing them with tools, such as tongs, forks and tooth picks, as well as a towel to wipe and dry their hands.

Red: Beets, strawberries, raspberries, red apples

Orange: Oranges, orange peppers, carrots

Yellow: Yellow peppers, yellow apples, pineapple, 

Green: Kiwi, green apple, green peppers, green beans, or cucumber

Blue: Blueberries, blue smoothie with spirulina powder

Purple: Blackberries, purple grapes

Have your child engage in chopping foods (with kid-safe knives), or helping to arrange the rainbow. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate play based strategies and food exploration! Feel free to add clouds at the end of the rainbow with whipped cream, or add a pot of gold with yellow or orange foods like cheese, macaroni and cheese or popcorn!

Make Lucky Charms Rice Krispies Treats:

This can be a fun way to engage in meal prep to watch how dry cereal can change!

Use Lucky charms cereal, butter and marshmallows. Some like to add some vanilla for added flavor!

Shamrock-Shaped Sandwiches:

Use a shamrock cookie cutter to make tea sandwiches. You can do peanut butter and jelly, cucumber and cream cheese, egg salad, or lunch meat and cheese.

You can also try warm sandwiches, like grilled cheese!

Make a Green Smoothie:

Work together to add familiar foods to a blender to create a smoothie, explore texture and taste, then add something green to see how the color, texture and taste might change!

Try Using One of Our Rainbow Themed Placemats:

This can help guide discussion and engagement in foods based on color!

These aren’t just“extra” skills…they are THE building blocks of everyday participation.

It’s important to keep these explorations low pressure and to engage authentically with foods. Feeding and mealtimes are so much about regulation, connection and spending time together. Check out our information on mealtime pressure for more details! Enjoy exploring foods together using some of these ideas, or comment your favorite way to increase food exploration around St. Patrick’s Day!

Visit our TEC Resource Shop to download one our themed-place mats, or other fun St. Patrick’s Day themed activity packs!