Positive approach to healthy eating with children

 Teaching children about healthy eating

1. Eat through stories – Many children’s stories include food such as goldilocks with the porridge and Little red riding hood with bread and muffins. This is a great way to engage your child. This way you can discuss why breakfast is important and how porridge is made from oats which is a brilliant source of brain power.
2. Use music and song – Children love singing, therefore learning songs about food can help get children involved with different foods. There are many traditional songs such as ‘Five Fat Sausages’ and ‘Hot Cross Buns’. These allow children to talk about seasonal food and what foods are healthy etc.
3. Grow your own – Growing your own food is a brilliant way to get children learning about all the different types of food and how nutritious they are for our bodies. children will love planting the seeds and watering the plants, watching them grow and digging them up. this teaches them the whole food cycle and then they get to taste the end product. it will also give them a sense of accomplishment.
4. Food and Play – Children love getting involved in role-play, this is a brilliant way to incorporate food. Children will love pretending to cook their own food and sell it. If you choose a cafe theme you can introduce  simple cooking recipes. They can count, mix and mash using various tools. There are lots of great healthy recipes such as fruit kebabs, dips and smoothies.
5. Educating Parents – Communicating with parents is vital. Allowing them to gain information on what you are doing in nursery to get the children to eat healthy food can also be reinforced at home. Children can then have the same expectations for nursery and home.