As culinary experts and foodies know, we eat with our eyes first. If our food looks good, it suddenly becomes that much more appetizing. While adults are known for their food presentation preferences, children are famous fussy eaters. If their food isn’t a certain colour, they will turn their nose up to the entire meal! Making meals and snacks fun can help curb this tendency and, the best news of all is that fun fruit designs are easier than you think!

Turn ordinary fruit into fun for kids with these great ideas:

Kiwi Turtles: Cut a slice of kiwi and place a green grape on the front end for the head. Slice two more grapes in half to make the four legs and use kiwi seeds for eyes.

Pear Porcupine: Peel the skin off the top half of the pear. Place grapes on toothpicks (one green grape per toothpick) and then insert the toothpicks into the top, left, and right sides of the pear. You might want to slice a thin piece off the side that will be the base of your design in order to keep it steady. Add a black olive to the tip of the pear as a nose and whole cloves as eyes. You don’t have to eat the cloves, of course! They are just for decorative purposes.

Banana Dolpin: Take a nicely rounded (half moon) banana and place it on the table with the two ends pointed upwards. The end that was attached to the bunch will become the head and the other end will be the tail. Gently slice portions of the skin on the left and right to create two flippers. Don’t cut too deep. You only want to lift the skin away from the fruit. These two flippers will also offer support and hold your dolphin in place. Now splice the skin on the tail end in two and bend out to the left and right. Finally, draw an adorable dolphin grin and eyes on the head. Since you’re not eating the skin, you can use a black marker for this. Play it safe and choose a non-toxic variety.

Berry Butterflies: Create your own butterflies using one large strawberry (cut in half from top to bottom) and one small strawberry (cut in half from top to bottom) to form the four wings. Place a blackberry in the middle as a body and add smaller slices of strawberry on top of each wing. Thin carrot slices make great antennas. For something a litle different, you can substitute the strawberry wings with banana wings and add strawberry on top with a raspberry or blackberry body.

These fun fruit designs are great for getting kids to eat more fruit and they are also excellent for parties and any time you welcome guests.