Under Construction…

Don’t mind the dust. I’m playing around with a new design!

Check back on Monday evening for some fun Thanksgiving ideas!

 

Guest Post: Teaching Kids Nutrition

Amy, from Super Healthy Kids, is here as my guest today. She majored in Health Education and teaches classes around the community on implementing a healthy lifestyle; she is planning on getting a Master’s of Nutrition next year. She blogs daily with ideas on how to teach your children to make healthy choices on their own, with the hopes that they will develop these skills for life. I love that she shares her personal experiences in teaching her own children about living a healthy lifestyle. Her blog has some really good stuff, and I am a faithful follower. She is amazing, and I feel so lucky to have her insight today!

Teaching kids to eat healthier is most effective the younger you start! Preschool is the perfect time to help kids understand what effects different foods have on their bodies. Kids learn this concept both by influence (if the cereal manufacturers can convince kids, so can we), and by letting them choose their own foods.

The lesson:
The simpleness of this lesson is the beauty of it. Teach them, “All foods we eat can be either green light, yellow light, or red light foods. First, our ‘green light food’. This food you can eat anytime, and makes you ‘go’. Then we have yellow light food. These foods you eat sometimes, and makes you a little slower. Then there are red light foods. These foods you should not eat, and they will make you stop!

Take out some various foods, or cut pictures out of grocery store ads. Then, quiz your kids on whether they think it’s a red light, yellow light, or green light food. Explain with each one, why it is categorized as such. ”Green light foods (carrots, apples, bananas, broccoli, oatmeal) have lots of vitamins and minerals that make our bodies work. They give us energy, they are straight from the ground as God made them. They fill us up, without adding lots of sugar and empty calories. Yellow light foods are OK for us. (animal crackers, gold fish, cereal) They have a few vitamins, but they also have some things in them like chemicals to make them last longer that may not be good for us if we eat too much. Red light foods (chips, cookies, hot dogs) have too many chemicals, too much sugar, and no vitamins.” Have your kids go through the cupboard and ask you, “Mom, is this a green light food?” 

Luckily, we have lots of green light foods. We were talking yesterday about drugs and alcohol and my 8 year old daughter said, “Are drugs a red light food?” Yes! I told her. They totally start to understand.

Activity:
Print this traffic light and have kids draw pictures, or cut and paste pictures of different foods. There is also a portion plate coloring page for fun here: http://www.superhealthykids.com/coloringpage.pdf , or use a bland Food Pyramid at http://teamnutrition.usda.gov/Resources/mypyramidcoloringpage.html

Story:

Stone Soup by Ann McGovern

After reading, talk about the ingredients added to the soup and why that made for a hearty meal!

 

Aren’t these great ideas?! I can’t wait to try the “light” foods with my children! She also sells these cute plates that help your children with portion size and selecting the right types of foods. Thanx, Amy! Again, be sure to check her out at Super Healthy Kids. You’ll be so glad you did!

 

Nutrition: Food Sorting

Have your children sort play foods or magazine pictures into healthy and unhealthy* categories. You can make this really fun by making a goat out of poster board and telling the children that this goat (you can call him Greg) only likes healthy food! They can then put the food or pictures of the healthy food into his mouth and leave the others out. Lots of fun!

You could also sort the food into various groups based on the Food Guide Pyramid. Provide rings or hula hoops for sorting.

*Many young children begin to feel guilty about eating sweets after studying about nutrition. I prefer to teach them that sweets are okay in moderation. It seems to help them feel better and continue to make good choices.

Tune in tomorrow to hear an expert’s view on child nutrition and to get some more fun ideas!

 

Field Trip to Grocery Store

You may be surprised to learn that many grocery stores offer field trips to young children. If you can get a group together, most are more than willing to give your children a behind the scenes tour. You can visit the back where the milk and eggs are stocked and feel how cold it is. Sometimes you can see where they store the fresh meat (yuck!). They will give you a tour of the produce section. And many will take you to the back of the bakery, where you can see how cookies are made and even sample some goodies. This is a quick, fast-paced tour that most children enjoy! If you can’t get a group together, lead them on a tour yourself. Show them the different types of fruits and vegetables. Maybe even let them each pick one out to buy and take home to try. You could even ask the people behind the counters more about what they do.

As an extension, it would be fun to set up your own grocery store at home based on what you saw on your field trip. You can save old cereal boxes and clean out milk containers and the likes for this. How fun (and educational) would this be!

 

Nutrition: Be a Food Explorer!

In order to teach children about nutrition, they need to know about the different types of food there are. Many young children don’t understand the difference between healthy foods and unhealthy foods so it’s up to us to teach them. We have a great guide: The Food Guide Pyramid. The official site for kids is awesome! I love how the pyramid lets you cater to your own family’s needs. This site has ideas on how to teach healthy living to children from ages 2 on up. Seriously, it’s fabulous! I recommend checking it out! You can get a copy of the pyramid I’ll be using this week there, as well.

I love to present this concept in a fun way by telling the kids that we’re going to be food explorers! And that’s exactly what you’re going to do: explore food. Talk about food and why we need food. Find out what they know about food. Then, tell them that there’s a way to know what kinds of foods are healthy for our bodies and show them the pyramid. Discuss what they see. Be sure to note all the kids that are exercising and being active, as well.

If you have time, it’s fun to spend one day a week on each food group, really diving in and exploring the foods in that group. This way, they really learn what is good for them. For example:

On Monday, we would learn about the Grains group. I would bring in items from my cupboards that are in this group, such as crackers, bread, noodles, etc. We would discuss the items (or explore the foods) and why they are good for us. We would then look in magazines for foods that would belong in that group and cut them out. I liked to have the kids glue their pictures onto the pyramid (see my picture above). To finish off each day, I would provide a food from that group for the kids to try (or explore); maybe muffins for the Grains group. It’s also fun to have your other activities for the day center around this food group, such as stringing Cheerio necklaces or putting rice into your sensory table.

When we learn about the fruit group and vegetable group, I like to introduce the kids to unique items, things that maybe they haven’t tried, such as mango or papaya. For the dairy group, it’s fun to have the kids fingerpaint with yogurt on wax paper. For your “protein” group (meat, beans, nuts), peanut butter playdough is fun! If you’re in a group setting away from home, just be sure that you check for allergies (we have a child with some so this is always on my mind!).

As a heads-up: I’m really excited to have an expert in this field guest post here on Friday! Stay tuned! She’s got some great ideas!

 

Nutrition: Make a Paper Salad

This week, we will be learning about nutrition. I love teaching this the week after Halloween!!   Today’s activity is an open-ended craft that you could do for a fun art project or center idea. Tomorrow, we will address more about teaching nutrition to your children.

Provide paper plates and construction paper. Have your children create their own salad using construction paper and glue on the plate. My son did this project when he was 2. I helped cut, but he did all the creating and gluing. We put lettuce (which he tore), strawberries, bananas, and cheese. He was so proud; this hung on our fridge for weeks!

 

Additions

Since I’m finally up and running with my computer, I have added pictures to some of my previous posts that were lacking. Be sure to check out the ones from this past week. If you scroll down, most of them are on this page, with a couple on the next. I also did some post-editing with my own experiences with my children as we completed the activities this week. Thanx for your patience with me these last couple of weeks! It’s been just a little crazy!

 

Happy Halloween!

Have a safe and fun Halloween! See you on Monday!

 

**last year’s adorable picture!

 

Boo!

Another fun learning game that you can use any time of year! I love that it’s also very open-ended so you can apply whatever skill you are working on. For teachers, this is a great “centers” game.

Preparations:

1. Cut a bunch of pumpkins. Ghosts would also be really cute, or you could choose any other fun Halloween shape.

2. Put a letter, sight word, number, math fact, etc. on most of the pumpkins.

3. Write “Boo!” on the remaining pumpkins.

Game:

1. Lay the pumpkins out, upside-down.

2. The kids take turns drawing the pumpkin cards one at a time, reading whatever is on the card. If they get it correct, they keep the pumpkin and go again.

3. If they get the card wrong, the pumpkin goes back into the middle, and their turn ends.

4. If they draw a “Boo!” card, they shout, “BOO!” and their turn ends. (They LOVE getting “Boo!” cards)

5. Play until all the cards are gone.

 

**(If you’re doing this another time of year, choose a different shape, popsicle sticks in a can, etc. You could also choose a different word other than “BOO!” It’s fun to do action words, like “jump,” and have them do that action when the word is drawn.)

 

Pumpkin Counting

There are so many educational ideas in my files; I had a hard time selecting just one. Today I chose what I call, “Pumpkin Counting.” All you need are some cards with numbers written on them (whatever your children may be working on) and some small paper pumpkins.

Lay the cards out, then have your child put that many corresponding pumpkins on each card. Easy. Fun!