- Hi, friends.

My name is Darlene Thomas, and I am here to read you a story called "Love on a Plate," written and illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh.

Stick around, after the story, I'll show you how to make your very own love on a plate craft.

"Every day, mom makes me delicious meals.

Chop, chop, chop.

Stir, stir, stir.

My mom is a great cook.

Monday.

With rice, peas, carrots, seaweed, and pasta, she makes a robot.

My robot reads brilliant books to me.

Tuesday.

With lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, parsley, and lime, she makes a garden.

My garden is gorgeous and growing.

Wednesday.

With mushrooms, cheese, tomatoes, seaweed, pita, and peas, she makes a violin.

Zig, zig, zig.

Mom teaches me how to play.

Thursday.

With waffles, marshmallows, raspberries, chocolate, and frosting, she makes a unicorn.

Up, up, up to the sky we fly.

Friday.

With eggs, pita, tomatoes, carrots, and parsley, she makes a train.

[train chugging] Choo, choo, choo.

My friends and I travel [train whistle blowing] to faraway places.

Saturday.

With noodles, tomatoes, pepperoni, cheese, and more, she makes a sailboat.

Hello.

Hello, little fishies.

Sunday.

Today is Mother's Day.

With waffles, raspberry, and icing, I make a plate for my mom.

I love you, Mom.

It is a plate full of love and happiness.

Thank you, Mom."

Wow, that was a really great story about how a family expresses their love for one another by arranging their food on a plate in really creative ways, like using waffles to make a unicorn or pasta to make a robot.

My absolute two favorite plates from the story was the train and the sailboat.

Those are two of my favorite forms as transportation.

I think when I do my craft activity, I'd like to show love on a plate by making my very own train.

I can show you how.

So for this activity, all that you'll need today are some markers and some paper of choice.

I am going to use some white copy paper, and I have this blue paper as a place mat so you could see everything better.

As we all know, plates come in different shapes, sizes, and colors.

You can use whatever shape you would like, whatever color you would like.

Today, I'm just going with a circle shape with white copy paper.

You can ask a trusted adult to help you cut your paper in any shape you would like to use.

Just make sure that it's big enough so you can add all your favorite foods when you're drawing so that you can create your very special love on a plate.

All right, let's get started.

So on my pretend plate of food, I'm going to think about what are my favorite foods, what are their shapes, and what I would like to use to create my train.

And I'm thinking, first, I'd like to start with drawing my train tracks.

I think that's a great place to start.

So I'm going to draw some tracks along the bottom of my plate.

[whimsical music] And next, I'm going to think about a part of a train that I would like to draw first.

And I'm thinking I'm gonna start with the wheels.

Hmm, what shape should I use to draw a wheel?

If you're thinking along with me and you said a circle, you're absolutely right.

Wheels are circular so that they can roll on a flat surface, like on a train track.

So I'm going to draw some circles for the wheels.

And these are not just circles.

I'm pretending that these are my favorite snack, black olives.

Mm-mm, delicious.

[Darlene chuckles] So I'm gonna line up my black olives all along the train tracks.

There we go.

And you don't have to be the best artist.

You can just think, what shape can I use?

And then you can just draw some straight lines or curved lines to the best of your ability to make the shape that you want to create.

All right, next, I'm thinking I'm going to need another shape for my train cars.

I'm thinking I'm going to use a rectangular shape.

And my favorite snack I'd like to use for that, [gasps] mm, some juicy, red watermelon.

So I'm going to draw some beautiful, rectangular watermelon pieces that are going to be my train cars right on top of the wheels.

And as you can see, my rectangles have two short sides and two longer sides.

Ooh, am I gonna make it?

[laughs] That's okay.

It's gonna look like my train is coming into the station.

[laughs] All right, next, we have to be able to see out of the train so we could see where we're going.

That's my favorite thing to do.

And a snack that I love to add to this plate is some yummy cheese.

I'm going to add some cheese squares so that we can see out of the window on my train.

So I'm just adding some square shapes inside of my rectangles so that I can see outside of my train.

[Darlene giggles] So, so far, I have black olives of the wheels, I have some juicy, red watermelon as my train cars cut into rectangles, and I have some yummy cheese on top cut into squares so we could see out of the window on my train.

Ooh, I love this plate already.

Now that I have my train, I'm gonna go in and add some other details.

Well, friends, I'm gonna go ahead and finish coloring this in, and I'll be back in a second to show you the finished product.

And I'm all done.

I really enjoy making my love on a plate activity.

It was so much fun thinking about all of my favorite snacks and how I would use them to make a train.

Who would've thought that I can use black olives for wheels, and red rectangles as watermelon, and the yellow squares for cheese to see out the window on the train?

My smoke stack is made out of a pretzel stick.

And the smoke is actually green celery leaves.

I also went in and added a few more details, like the rainbow, some birds flying high in the sky, and the sun.

When you're making your very own love on a plate, think about what shapes you might add, what your favorite snacks are, and how you'll arrange them on your plate, and who you might share it with.

I hope you really enjoy making your love on a plate as much as I enjoyed making mine.

Goodbye.

[cheerful folk music]