It’s raining cats and dogs …

The past few days on the East Coast have been wet to say the least. I thought that the summer heat was done and the nasty weather had arrived, a few months too early. It got me thinking about the book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Based on my last recommendation with food taking shape of more interesting things, this selection takes this concept to a whole other level!

In the town of CHEWANDSWALLOW, supermarkets do not exist and weather comes three times a day in the form of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every meal, the weather would bring snowing mashed potatoes, raining soup or storms of hamburgers. The weather predictions included “becoming heavy at times, with occasional ketchup.”  One day, it gets worse and the delicious weather the town once enjoyed turns inedible and dangerous. There were repetitive meals of overcooked broccoli, pea soup fog and a storm of pancakes and maple syrup that closed the town school. Everyone abandoned the town in fear of their lives and started a new life in a regular town with supermarkets and regular snow storms.

In chapter 5  – Good Morning, I discussed the weather chart aspect of a morning meeting routine. Learning types of weather is an important concept that can be learned early on and this is an extension of that activity. Challenge your kids to think of creative ways to describe the weather. What foods reminds them of certain weather and in an imaginary world, what foods should fall from the sky for each meal? Ask them to predict the next days weather; what would fall for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Take it a step further and have them create a weather chart for the week.  Using drawings and/or pictures from a magazine, each day can have “weather” predictions for three meals.

This book can be a good way to discuss appropriate choices for each meal. Traditionally, we associate eggs with breakfast and sandwiches with lunch. Growing up we would have eggs for dinner all the time. I loved doing this and as a child, it is always fun to “break the rules”. Ask your children to think of a lunch to have for breakfast and a dinner to have for lunch. If this is OK with you and the ideas are healthy, honor these wishes. It might make mealtime more successful and interesting for your children, aside from making brussel sprouts into wizard gumballs!

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