🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 😊 Positive Relationship with Food — Joyful, pressure-free food experiences build the positive relationship with eating that underlies lifelong nutritional health — and is far more protective against disordered eating than any restriction-based approach.
• 🍽️ Independence & Life Skills — Learning to serve themselves, pour a drink, or prepare a simple snack builds practical independence and the self-care capability that kindergarteners need to manage their own nutrition during the school day.
• 💬 Vocabulary Expansion — Nutrition activities introduce rich vocabulary — nutrients, protein, fiber, harvest, ferment, season — expanding language range in a domain that connects directly to science, social studies, and health literacy.
• 🧁 Kitchen Science & Math — Cooking is applied chemistry and physics: watching bread rise, butter melt, or egg whites stiffen teaches cause-and-effect science while measuring cups and counting portions deliver authentic math in context.

Enjoy the warmth of spring, a casual meal, and healthy outdoor play with a Mother's Day picnic. After you enjoy these simple dishes, you can relax on your picnic blanket and reflect on motherhood or join your preschooler in outdoor fun and games. We've made this Mother's Day picnic menu easy for the adults to prepare. But let your preschooler join you in the kitchen to do the preschooler picnic jobs and make your picnic an all day affair.

Mother's Day Picnic Menu

Barbecued Chicken
Tomato-Avocado Salad
Preschooler-Friendly Side Dishes
Whole-Grain Bread
Strawberries
Homemade Lemonade

Preparing the Picnic - Jobs for Adults

Prepare the chicken.
For easy barbecued chicken, cover chicken breasts with your favorite bottled barbecue sauce, cook on the grill or in your broiler the morning of the picnic. Slice into bite-size pieces so you don't have to do any cutting during the picnic. Refrigerate the chicken until you leave for the picnic.

Prepare the salad.
Combine one or two cups grape or cherry tomatoes and one sliced avocado. Mix in a dressing of 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, plus salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until the picnic.

For preschooler-friendly side dishes, fill one container with plain tomatoes and one with plain avocado slices.

Prepare simple syrup for the lemonade.
Combine equal parts sugar and water and cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. For two servings, use 1/4 cup each of water and sugar. For four servings, use 1/2 cup of each, etc. 

Slice the lemons.
You'll need two to four lemons every two servings of the lemonade.

Preparing the Picnic - Jobs for Preschoolers

Wash the strawberries and tomatoes.
Slide up a stool to the kitchen sink and let your preschooler rinse the strawberries and tomatoes. Then, have your preschooler lay out the fruit on paper towels to dry.

Squeeze lemons for lemonade.
If you have a traditional citrus juicer, let your preschooler push down on the lemon while you hold the juicer. With the newer citrus squeezers, your preschooler may be able to get lots of juice on their own. If you prefer unassisted juicing, let your preschooler squeeze small slices of lemons with their bare hands into a glass bowl. Then strain the lemon juice before adding to the lemonade.

Mix lemonade.
Help your preschooler with the measuring: For two servings, combine 1/2 cup simple syrup, 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1 - 1 1/2 cups water, depending on how strong you like your lemonade. Chill until the picnic.

by Kati Chevaux