Question
Q – “Do any settings do a rolling lunch for preschoolers? The care inspectorate has advised we try this as kids are sitting for too long.”
Answers –
A – “We take a small group initially to have lunch (mainly sandwich type lunches where the children make their own), when a child finishes they choose another child’s envelop and finds that child who is playing in the main room (we post the envelopes in a post box to show they have had lunch)”
A – “We do…school dinners go in first and then the two staff in the kitchen have a list and gradually work down the list of packed lunches. They know who takes longer to eat and who is always hungry earlier. It works really well.”
A – “Our lunch is only 30 mins max and in that time the children have to wash their hands and then clean their plates etc after. We do rolling snack but as we are a preschool and they have lunch boxes the group lunch works better.”
A – “Lunch in small groups keeps the social aspect and helps with supporting eating , also helps stop long periods of sitting for some children. Dawn has a good set up”
A – “Rather than having the whole class sit down for lunch, they come in small groups while the other children continue to play.”
A – “We do up to 3 sittings in preschool and 2 sittings in the toddlers. Works much better and the children are eating, sitting and socialising much better than when they all used to sit together”
A – “We all sit down together for lunch, as the children finish they go into another room and do an activity until the rest of the children have finished”
A – “It would work with packed lunches but I don’t see how it is possible with hot dinners because of food hygiene rules”
A – “Yes we do. We also do rolling snack during the session. Both work well – the children learn to pack their lunch box away before they go back to play”
A – “We sit 8 at a time”
A – “We do 2 sittings for lunch depending on how many children we have in on that day as we can some times have 30 children for lunch”