Have you ever played Don’t Eat Pete with M&M’s?
All you need to do is spread out several M&M’s on a plate and then have one person go out of the room while the rest choose which M&M will be Pete. Once everyone in the room knows which one is Pete, then the other person can come back in the room. They begin eating the M&M’s, one at a time. If they try to eat Pete, everyone shouts “Don’t Eat Pete!” and that is the end of the turn. You can restock the plate with M&M’s if needed and have someone else take a turn.
HERE is a link to a fancier way to play (from theteacherwife), which actually looks pretty cute. We usually just use a plate as our game board, but if you want to print out or draw a game board, that could be fun too 🙂
One night we had chili, cornbread and green peas for dinner. My son would not even try his peas. Somehow we ended up playing Don’t Eat Pete with the peas (or you can call it “Don’t eat Pea!” haha). Guess what?!? He ate every single one of those peas on his plate by the end of dinner time (even got seconds so we could keep playing). And, our family had a great time playing together and interacting during the meal, which is SO important. We’ve done it a few times since. Sometimes the kids want to play with popcorn, corn kernels, carrots, canned black beans, broken up brownie pieces, french fries and all sorts of things.
Just for fun, I want to challenge you to think of a healthy food your child is very hesitant to eat, and try playing Don’t Eat Pete with that food. And if you do, please share your experience in the comments below! I’d love to hear about it 🙂
