Fruits & vegetables for kids

What's here

Twelve fruits and vegetables, all the ones on your toddler's actual plate: apple, banana, carrot, peas, plus the drama of a strawberry that wears its seeds on the outside. Tap one and it bounces to life with a sound and one true thing about itself. Fair warning based on real toddler behavior: this page has been known to make broccoli slightly more interesting at dinner. Slightly.

Meet these first

• Strawberry, who wears her tiny seeds on the outside instead of hiding them inside
• Broccoli, who looks like a tiny green tree and helps you grow big and strong
• Carrot, crunchy and orange, who grows down in the dirt where you can't see him
• Watermelon, who is so juicy because he's almost all water inside
• Peas, the little green fellows hiding in a neat row inside a long, smooth pod
• Avocado, who keeps one big seed right in the middle, round as a ball
• Corn, who has hundreds of juicy little kernels lined up in neat rows
• Banana, who grows in big bunches on a tall plant and gives you lots of energy

How to play (60 seconds)

Play "find the color." Ask your toddler to find something red, and name the strawberry or tomato together when they tap it. Then something orange (carrot), then something green (their pick, there are plenty). Round two is "inside or outside": ask where the carrot grows, then both of you point down at the dirt. Ask where the apple grows, and point up at the tree. Sixty seconds, and you've practiced colors, food names, and up versus down without anyone noticing it was practice.

Good to know

Food words are the easiest first words to reinforce because the flashcards are already in your kitchen. Tap the banana here, then hand them a real banana at snack time and say the word again. Hearing a word on screen and then holding the real thing is a lovely one-two for building vocabulary. The free Starter Pack on our printables page includes first-words cards you can tape right onto the high chair tray. It's at /printables.

Keep exploring

From the kitchen, wander to farm-animals to meet who lives where the food grows, community-helpers to find the farmer and the chef, feelings for what happens when the cookie runs out, and animal-sounds-for-kids for the noisiest page we have. The homepage has the full menu.