For snack the children made their own vegetable soup. With just a little guidance from an adult they were able to cut up their own vegetables ready to put into a soup maker which produced a wonderful, colourful and flavoursome snack. Most of the children were happy to try it and it proved to be a great success. It is really important for children to understand where their food comes from. They are able to see how ingredients are transformed into the foods that we all recognise, but are so often presented in a packet or tin.
In a continuation of this theme we made a fruit salad on Tuesday. Once again the children were able to cut up the fruits themselves to produce a very tasty and healthy snack. This was followed by smoothie making later in the week. One of the children requested that we make sandwiches, so that will be an activity for next week. Apart for the obvious benefits of teaching children about healthy eating, these activities give us an opportunity to help them develop the physical skills and hand eye co-ordination required to use small tools such as knives.
“Jolly Jo” sessions focussed on the healthy eating theme by pretending that the hula hoops were fruit bowls and aiming the colourful fruit (bean bags) into them. There were also games of hopscotch, jumping on coloured mats, farmers’ in his Den. All of these activities support physical skills and healthy living as well as giving the opportunity for colour recognition, counting and co-operation with their peers.
A donation of large cardboard fruit boxes became beds later in the week and the children had a lovely times playing with them in the home corner.
Thursday was an extremely windy day so this was turned into a kite making activity session. Large kites were created and the children had so much fun flying them around the garden.
At Squirrels we love to adapt our planned activities to situations as they arise and we see windy or wet or snowy days as opportunities to try new activities.
Words we have learned this week:
Healthy (what do we mean by healthy eating)
Exercise
Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at home:
Make your own kites using bin liners and string.
Make a smoothie. You don't need an expensive smoothie maker. Chop up fruit, add a tin of soft fruit such as peaches, and mash with a potato masher. Your child will thoroughly enjoy mashing it into a pulp and it will provide a tasty and healthy snack.