Vegetables and Ikebana for Children

While listening to my friends lament that they have difficulties getting their children to eat a variety of fruit and vegetables, my thoughts turned to a lesson within the Sogetsu Ikebana curriculum on fruit and vegetables in an arrangement. I immediately thought, if children are encouraged to “play” with their vegetables, they might also be encouraged to eat them.

Materials

My own children love eating different fruit and vegetables. They especially love eating freshly shelled peas so were delighted when I suggested making an ikebana arrangement with the empty pea pods.

Shelling peas

Once they had devoured the peas, they carefully split the pods in two and twisted them to form interesting shapes.

Twisting pea pods

A dark green vase was chosen and the peas were balanced on top of one another, with an added daffodil from our garden to give a pop of contrasting colour.

Adding the Daffodil

Adding the final pea pod