Engaging Summer Activities to Try with Your Picky Eater this Summer

Summer offers a great chance to support picky eaters through fun, hands-on activities. These experiences can gently encourage exploration of new tastes, textures, and oral skills without pressure. Using playful, sensory-rich environments that are naturally plentiful in the Summer months helps children explore food and feeding in a positive way. Here are some activities to try while you beat the heat that combine feeding therapy principles with enjoyable moments for your family!

Child picking berries

Berry Picking Adventures

Taking your child berry picking is a fun sensory experience that introduces new tastes and textures in a relaxed, natural environment. The bright colors, sweet smells, and different berry shapes invite curiosity, and the movement required to pick the berries is naturally regulating . While picking berries, your child can:

• Touch and smell the berries before tasting

• Explore different textures by feeling soft, squishy, or firm berries

• Practice biting and chewing and identify if they like sweet, tart, or more neutral berries best

  
  

This outdoor activity encourages trying new foods without pressure and supports feeding therapy goals by linking sensory exploration with eating. Bonus- picking berries and bringing them home invites repeat exposures which are critical for expanding food repertoires.

Practice Cups with Water Play

Using practice cups during water play is a simple but effective way to build oral motor skills. These cups help children practice sipping, blowing, and controlling liquids, which are important for feeding development. Set up a small water table or use a basin outside and provide cups of various sizes and shapes. Encourage your child to:

• Pour water from one cup to another

• Use two hands to stir lemonade powder into a cup

• Blow bubbles through a straw in the water

• Sip water slowly from an open cup or straw

  
  

Water play activities combine sensory input with oral motor practice, making it a natural part of summer fun. By incorporating these activities outside, it reduces pressure from parents to keep the kitchen clean and encourages more frequent practice of these skills.

Enjoying a Picnic Outside

Eating outside changes the mealtime atmosphere and can make food more appealing to picky eaters. A picnic allows your child to eat in a less structured, more sensory-rich environment. To make the most of this:

• Eat family style, encouraging each family member to serve themselves from food offered in serving bowls and plates, which increases food interactions

• Include some favorite foods alongside new options

• Use fun plates and utensils to engage your child visually and tactilely

• Make a theme night for dinner

  
  

The fresh air, natural sounds, and change of scenery can reduce mealtime anxiety and encourage your child to try new foods.

Grocery Store Trips as Sensory Exploration

Grocery shopping provides endless opportunities for positive food exposure, including looking, finding, touching, smelling and talking about foods without the expectation of taking a bite. Try these strategies on your next trip

• Let your child touch and smell fresh produce

• Talk about colors, shapes, and textures of fruits and vegetables

• Allow your child to pick one new food to try at home

  
  

This hands-on experience builds familiarity with food and reduces sensory aversions by making food exploration part of everyday life.

Popsicle Recipes from ezpz

Make a Frozen Treat

Summer is the perfect excuse to introduce new textures through temperature. Cold foods can act as a gentle reset for a child’s sensory system, waking up the muscles in the mouth and temporarily reducing a hypersensitive gag reflex.

• Scoop small dollops of yogurt onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Let your child use a toothpick or the tip of a spoon to swirl fruit (like strawberry, blueberry, or mango). Freeze for at least two hours.

• Pour blended fruit, fruit and yogurt, or juice into molds and freeze to make a popsicle.

  
  

Each of these activities supports sensory exploration and oral motor development while keeping summer enjoyable and low-pressure.

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Summer is an ideal time to blend feeding therapy with sensory-rich activities that feel like play. Try incorporating these ideas into your summer plans to build confidence and enjoyment around food for your child.