Teach Kids to Eat the Rainbow with Our New Felt Rainbow Salad Play Set
Getting kids excited about vegetables just got a whole lot more colorful. We're thrilled to introduce the newest hands-on teaching tool in the Nutrition Education Store: a handmade felt rainbow salad play set that turns the “eat the rainbow” message into play children can touch, sort, and build.
Why “eat the rainbow” works
The different colors in fruits and vegetables come from different natural nutrients. When kids aim to put several colors on their plate, they naturally get a wider mix of vitamins, minerals, and fiber — no counting or food labels required. That one simple, visual goal is exactly what this felt set brings to life. Children build their own colorful salad, name each vegetable, and discover that a plate full of different colors means a plate full of different kinds of goodness.
What's in the set
Every set is lovingly cut and stitched by hand by an experienced felt artist, so the colors are bright, the details are charming, and the pieces are built to stand up to years of little hands. Inside you'll find 23 felt pieces:
- 1 green salad plate
- 3 pieces of lettuce in two shades of green
- 2 cucumber slices
- 1 avocado slice
- 2 yellow pepper rings
- 2 corn strips
- 2 carrot slices
- 2 tomato slices
- 2 radish slices
- 4 strips of red cabbage
- 2 blueberries
Built for classrooms, clinics, and kitchens
This set is a favorite tool for preschool and elementary teachers, daycare providers, dietitians, and feeding therapists, as well as families encouraging adventurous eating. Use it for a healthy-food activity at circle time, a rotating learning center, a one-on-one feeding-therapy session, or a cooking-class warm-up. Kids can build right on the green felt plate, or set their own real or toy plate on top and use the felt as a bright green background.
Along the way, they're practicing early math (counting, sorting, and comparing), building vocabulary, strengthening fine-motor skills, and learning real nutrition concepts that support MyPlate's “make half your plate fruits and veggies.”
Plus a printable teaching book
Every set comes with a companion 11-page PDF book — a Leader Guide for facilitators and a Build-a-Rainbow-Salad Activity Workbook for kids, complete with an eat-the-rainbow guide, salad-building prompts, and a coloring sheet. Print it as many times as you like.
Give kids a healthy start
Quiet, mess-free, screen-free, and endlessly reusable — this is the kind of play that plants a lifelong love of colorful, healthy food. Sets are handmade in small batches, so quantities are limited.
