A-Z Dinners With Your Kids | The What, Why And How

Let’s face it, a lot of kids are picky eaters.  Especially mine.  Over the years I have picked up a few tricks on getting a child to eat.  The biggest trick:  Involve the child in the food choice and decision!  When they have ownership in the meal they are much more excited about it and way more likely to eat it.

A-Z Dinners with your kids not only gets the children excited about eating, but it also reinforces their knowledge of the alphabet.  My 5 year old is learning to read, and my 3 year old is starting to identify letters.  This is a perfect opportunity to nurture their learning with out them really knowing!

How to Encourage your child to Participate:

• Explain to your children that you are going to do a really fun project with them for many dinners.
• Tell them how each dinner will start with a letter of the alphabet.
• The night before, go over the letter of the next dinner with your children by showing them a visual of the letter and sounding it out with them.
• Have your children guess foods that begin with that letter and let them even try to suggest the menu.
• If the letter of the day is the same letter that begins your child’s name, make it even more special and let that child choose something on the menu!
• On the day of, routinely ask them what “letter of the day it is” to keep it fresh in their heads.
• For any part of the meal where it is possible INVITE your children to help prepare the meal.  Examples:
  • Help mix an ingredient in a bowl
  • Set the table
  • Taste a finished product 🙂
  • Pour an ingredient in

Most importantly, show your children that YOU are excited about this!  Your enthusiasm will rub off on your whole family.

Click On The Letters Below To See The Menus:

Night “A”
Night “B”
Night “C”
Night “D”
Night “E”
Night “F”
Night “G”
Night “H”
Night “I”
Night “J”
Night “K”
Night “L”
Night “M”
Night “N”
Night “O”
Night “P”
Night “Q”
Night “R”
Night “S”
Night “T”
Night “U”
Night “V”
Night “W”
Night “X”
Night “Y”
Night “Z”

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