"Fast Food"

In recent years, for whaatever reason, funny little pictures made of produce seem to have become popular. I guess there are certain trends you just can't anticipate. Anyway, a friend gave us this book "Fast Food" from her donation pile.

 

and the second Nora saw it, she said, "We should make some 'fast food,' Mommy!"

She especially liked the little tangerine-in-a-banana-boat, shown in the middle of this page:

 

So that was what she asked to make first.

[As a side note, this book's reading level is more for ages 2 or so, but older children can enjoy the pictures, which are very cute. Also, many of the vegetable figures are actually not that complicated, like the cars shown below.

 

So your child can replicate them successfully, while adding her own touches.]

 

We didn't buy any "special" produce for this craft, we just used what we had on hand.

We started by splitting a poor banana down the middle.

Nora added a face to the tangerine/clementine (are they the same thing?) with a Sharpie pen.

Nora's imagination was piqued by this activity. I knew it would be a successful "craft" because she was so insistent on doing it, while I kept dragging my feet (not wanting to waste good produce!). The fact that the banana was half-dead and we only used carrot tops made it easier for me.

She wanted to make a canoe (banana), buoys (carrot tops), person (clementine), hat (bell pepper top), and a crab (slices of bell pepper). Then she asked to make a "celery man" with "ice skates" (strips of bell pepper). This concentrating face makes me giggle -- I think it's the face I make sometimes when getting shoes onto the kids:

Then her imagination kind of went wild and she wanted to make a "big field of grass" using broccoli stems and some old(ish) celery. That lime (below), which looks like an evil horned creature, was my own attempt at a bunny...so I think I'll leave the "fast food" to Nora.

Finished! A wacky craft, but fully compostable! Nora started eating it halfway through -- the little crab disappeared first -- or, at least, its claws, but I wouldn't let her eat the body because she had drawn on it with Sharpie.