Looking to get your students more involved in the Ontario Farm to School Challenge? We have some really simple ideas to keep them engaged and having fun!

Buses:
This activity requires some moving around. Students need to get up and talk to the rest of the group. Students have to form “buses” of people with common preferences or ideas. For example, you could ask:

• Favourite kind of Ontario-grown green vegetable?
• Favourite meal of the day?
• Sweet, savoury, salty, spicy, or sour?
• Mashed, baked or fried potatoes?

Students need to find others ‘getting on the same bus’. They can do this by talking, or for quieter spaces, using only body language!

Recipe Jigsaw:
Take a simple recipe from your school and print it out. Cut each step into a strip of paper so it’s separated from the other steps. Have each student or pair of students take a single recipe step. It’s now up to them to go around to the group and find their place in the ‘recipe’. They should be standing in the correct order by the end and perhaps even able to tell you what the final product is.

Sensory Exploration:
Facilitate some sensory exploration with your students. This is a great way to feature monthly ingredients or introduce them to something new.

• Cover one or more produce items with a tablecloth or blanket. Have students sit around it and feel under the blanket to guess what it is!
• Blindfold volunteer students and have them taste a piece of Ontario-grown fruit or vegetable. Record how they thought it tasted (e.g. sourness, bitterness, crunchiness, smoothness etc). Volunteer students can then ask the other students yes or no questions to try and figure out what they tasted!
• Perform a Great Big Crunch! Historically, FoodShare has always facilitated GBC’s with apples. But you can crunch with anything! Carrots, radishes, cucumbers, peppers… you name it! For more information on FoodShare’s Great Big Crunch, visit their website:www.foodshare.net