8
Play with Your Food
Grab
Potato peeler
Knife and cutting board
Carrots, cucumbers, celery, mushrooms, and peppers
Cherry tomatoes
Cheese slices
Olives, nuts, and raisins
Potato chips and pretzel sticks
Vegetable dip
Bowls
Large tray or plates
Go
Wash your hands thoroughly. Use the potato peeler to cut long strips of carrots and cucumbers. Slice the vegetables and cheese into various sizes. Have your daughter place the vegetables, chips, pretzels, and other snacks in bowls. On your tray or empty plates, arrange the different pieces of food to make silly faces, animals, vehicles, flowers, etc. When you’ve had lots of fun “playing with your food,” enjoy eating it up with the vegetable dip.
Grow
What kinds of crazy food art ended up on your plates? Faces with carrot-strip hair, mushroom ears, and a smile made of olives? Your creations were inevitably funny—and tasty too.
Just like it’s fun for you to watch your daughter’s imagination go wild, thinking about God’s creation of the world can blow your mind. Our planet is colorful and complex, but he made it all simply by his Word!
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (Col. 1:16)
The Lord has plans for your daughter’s own creativity. The imagination she possesses is part of God’s fingerprint—she is made in his image. Will she create a loving home of her own someday? Perhaps she will create works of art or music, share her thoughts through the written word, or weave ideas and plans together to bless her community, church, and workplace.
Make a list together of all the ways your daughter has used her creativity recently. Did she draw a picture, rearrange her room, or write a clever poem? Did she invent an imaginary world for her stuffed animals to live in? Get excited about her efforts and consider how you can encourage her originality even more.
Dear Lord,
Thank you for giving us an imagination. Thank you, too, for your amazing creativity in making this world for us to live in. We love the way we can see you in what you have made—the sun, moon, and stars, the trees and mountains, and the people that we love. Amen.