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Healthy
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Nutrition Activites with Children
Many life-long eating habits are shaped during a child's early years, offering teachers of young children a special opportunity to help establish a healthy relationship with food and lay the foundation for sound eating habits. Nutrition activities can help set children on the path to a healthful lifestyle.
Food-related activities are a natural with children and they offer an almost instant reward. First, the children can look at the food, exploring its color, size, texture, and shape. Next, they can "play" with it by feeling, washing, cutting, measuring, counting, mixing, stirring, and rolling it. When the food is ready, they can take pride in their own accomplishments. To top it all off--they get to eat it!
Through food and cooking activities, children also can develop skills in math, science, art, language, social studies, health and self-care, and social skills. Also, cooking and preparing foods helps create a nurturing, home-like atmosphere in a childcare center or after-school program.
Choose appropriate lesson plans
What lessons should your children learn? Perhaps a child is picky about eating vegetables-not an unusual situation! Engaging the children in an activity around a "new" vegetable on the lunch menu can do a lot to increase their acceptance of it. They may actually try it when it shows up on their plates. Perhaps a teacher is looking for a way to make a new student feel welcome in his or her classroom. The student may be invited to bring a favorite family recipe that the class can prepare and enjoy together while discussing the special meaning of the food in their family.
In addition, a preschool teacher might use food activities to bring simple math concepts to life. Children can shell fresh garden peas, counting the number of peas in each pod before eating the crisp, sweet vegetables. While learning about numbers, the children will discover that peas do not really come from a plastic bag in the grocery store freezer and that raw peas taste great. Don't be surprised if the pea shelling gets the children practicing their verbal and social skills as they share stories about picking peas in Grandma's garden. During this time, they get a chance to practice fine motor skills, too.
Be sure your lesson includes sound nutrition principles and accurate information. Icing cookies and decorating them with chocolate candies is great fun, but it falls a bit short of teaching good nutrition. Learning objectives and concepts should be appropriate for children's ages and cognitive development. For example, discussing "Vitamin K rich foods" will mean very little to preschool children. However, they can understand that "these foods help us grow" and "these foods help us get strong."
Don't be too concerned if an intended learning objective does not pan out (excuse the pun!) exactly as planned because the children will benefit in other ways. Keep a relaxed attitude about the learning objective and the finished product. See where the children's questions take the lesson--this will help to keep their interest. Each child will gain something slightly different from the activity, depending on his particular needs and interests. Afterwards, go over preparation notes while the activity is fresh in the mind, and add ideas for making improvements for the next time.
Your local library will have books to help you transform your idea into a lesson plan. A great story will stir the children's interest and focus their attention. Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey, can precede the making of a fresh fruit salad in summer or early fall. Likewise, a story about latkes can be read at Hanukkah time before stirring up a batch of potato pancakes with the children, or making the applesauce to go with them. On a cold winter day, Stone Soup, An Old Tale, by Marcia Brown, just might warm up the children to the idea of preparing a delicious vegetable soup using ingredients from the story. Reading the story before beginning the activity can help the children make the transition from active play to the nutrition activity that will require their full attention.
Selecting the activity
Books on food activities also can be found in the library. These books provide lists of necessary ingredients, equipment, recipes, etc., to make planning easier. Children's cookbooks with simple recipes may be another starting point for selecting activities. These often have the "method" portion of the recipe broken down into steps that children can do by themselves, and those that require adult "assistance." Be aware that some of these recipes assume an adult assistant for each child, so if a lot of adult assistance is needed for a recipe, it probably will not work well in a group setting.
Consider children's ages, interests and attention spans, and motor skills when selecting activities. For example, a preschool-age child may be quite happy exploring the elasticity of a ball of dough or rolling a jar back and forth on the table, watching cream change to butter. In contrast, the older child may want a more challenging task such as making muffins, and their focus will be on a successful end result. Some children should use plastic knives, while others may be ready to use a sharper knife with adult supervision. Can your children use a food grater without grating their fingers? If not, substitute pre-grated potatoes in potato pancakes. Explain such "skipped steps" to the children to help them grasp the whole process.
Ensure success with three-and four-year-old chefs by choosing simple activities that can be completed in a relatively short period of time. Having all needed ingredients and supplies collected on a tray keeps the children from becoming impatient while the teacher scurries around for missing items. To keep them focused, 15-20 minutes of "cooking" is about right for young children. Include time for clean-up as part of the lesson.
As children grow, build on their skills and increase the complexity of the activity and the time allotted for it. Activities can be broken into smaller steps to the done throughout the day. For example, the children can mix and knead yeast dough in the early morning and set it to rise once, then punch down the dough, shape it into rolls; and set for a second rise before lunch. The rolls can be baked and set to cool while the children are napping. They'll wake up to the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread to enjoy for snack with a glass of milk.
Here's the setting in the classroom: the nutrition activity is on the schedule. Two parent volunteers are coming to assist. The recipe has been broken down into simple steps that can be done by the children with very little help. Safety checks have been done, and all supplies and equipment have been gathered. The children are excited and ready with clean hands. Now what? Just do it!
By Inger Stallman-Jorgensen, M.S., R.D.
Inger Stallman-Jorgensen, M.S., R.D., is a registered dietitian who has worked as a nutrition coordinator in Head Start programs. She lives in Augusta, Georga.
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