Shocking!!! For 2 whole weeks I haven’t had time to update my blog due to being very busy indeed!
Week of 12-16th May was particularly busy being involved in the promotion of ‘Health Week’ at my kids’ primary school. I was one the 3 parent members of our kids’ school fundraising/ parent council involved in 4 activities for the kids to try out. Most days we arrived at school with our own children at around 8 am. We organised “swop a snack” and had to produce 300 healthy snacks per day – with every day being different! That was really the biggest part of tasks we had planned. The swop a snack challenge involved offering pupils a healthy alternative snack instead of eating the sweets or crisps their parents sent them to school with. The 1st day being Monday, we had arranged cereals as their alternative – choc minibix, weetos and shreddies. Did you know that there is less sugar in choc minibix compared to branflakes?! Tuesday we had to prepare fresh vegetables, Wednesday was whole fruit, Thursday was tropical fruit salad and Friday was a variety of crackers and cheese. They were all very popular and it was great to see the kids ‘buzz’ with the excitement at what was going to be their snack each day! That was 1 of our tasks.
The 2nd task was the “what’s in your lunchbox?” We put together a few items most parents would assume would be healthy and others perhaps easy options to pop into their lunch boxes. The children and some staff were shocked to see how much fat, sugar and salt were in these items! It was really an awareness/education for the kids to let them know that a little of these items are okay for now and again moments but not ideal for every day. In some items, the children would have had at least ½ the daily advised amount of fat, sugar or salt at lunchtime alone! A real eye opener!
Our 3rd task was the celebrity diet. We chose a healthy celeb, very slim celeb and an undesirably fat celeb. Devised some breakfast, lunch and dinner menus according to each celeb, mixed them up and got the older kids in groups to discuss who is healthy, who is almost healthy and who isn’t healthy and what could be done to amend this. The children’s participation and response was just awesome!
Our 4th task was ‘blind tasting’. We prepared blind folds cut out of a cheap fleece blanket – enough for a class. Prepared white and wholemeal pitta bread, bread and wraps and some fresh veg such as halved cherry tomatoes, cubed baby corn, peapods. A lot of the middle school kids just did not like some/most of the items tried. We had once class whom the majority put their hands up to show they did not like brown or wholemeal bread etc. Those same children were surprised to see that they had actually enjoyed the wholemeal items over the white food items! The best response to say they had enjoyed all or most of the items were in primary 2!
Sharon, our ‘mentor’ managed to pop round the school to film a few activities going on in school that week and put together a little movie. We finished off the week by holding a parents’ drop in morning on the Friday as it was ‘Jog Scotland’ and the classes took their turns jogging round the measured pitch a few times in the school grounds. As we were parent helpers, we were invited to join the school in their assembly and watched the video Sharon put together and then the slideshow with 2 school pupil narrators – quite emotional. Afterwards we [parent helpers] were presented with gift tokens for a local beauticians – which was very unexpected and appreciated!
So all in all that week was very busy!
Week of 12-16th May was particularly busy being involved in the promotion of ‘Health Week’ at my kids’ primary school. I was one the 3 parent members of our kids’ school fundraising/ parent council involved in 4 activities for the kids to try out. Most days we arrived at school with our own children at around 8 am. We organised “swop a snack” and had to produce 300 healthy snacks per day – with every day being different! That was really the biggest part of tasks we had planned. The swop a snack challenge involved offering pupils a healthy alternative snack instead of eating the sweets or crisps their parents sent them to school with. The 1st day being Monday, we had arranged cereals as their alternative – choc minibix, weetos and shreddies. Did you know that there is less sugar in choc minibix compared to branflakes?! Tuesday we had to prepare fresh vegetables, Wednesday was whole fruit, Thursday was tropical fruit salad and Friday was a variety of crackers and cheese. They were all very popular and it was great to see the kids ‘buzz’ with the excitement at what was going to be their snack each day! That was 1 of our tasks.
The 2nd task was the “what’s in your lunchbox?” We put together a few items most parents would assume would be healthy and others perhaps easy options to pop into their lunch boxes. The children and some staff were shocked to see how much fat, sugar and salt were in these items! It was really an awareness/education for the kids to let them know that a little of these items are okay for now and again moments but not ideal for every day. In some items, the children would have had at least ½ the daily advised amount of fat, sugar or salt at lunchtime alone! A real eye opener!
Our 3rd task was the celebrity diet. We chose a healthy celeb, very slim celeb and an undesirably fat celeb. Devised some breakfast, lunch and dinner menus according to each celeb, mixed them up and got the older kids in groups to discuss who is healthy, who is almost healthy and who isn’t healthy and what could be done to amend this. The children’s participation and response was just awesome!
Our 4th task was ‘blind tasting’. We prepared blind folds cut out of a cheap fleece blanket – enough for a class. Prepared white and wholemeal pitta bread, bread and wraps and some fresh veg such as halved cherry tomatoes, cubed baby corn, peapods. A lot of the middle school kids just did not like some/most of the items tried. We had once class whom the majority put their hands up to show they did not like brown or wholemeal bread etc. Those same children were surprised to see that they had actually enjoyed the wholemeal items over the white food items! The best response to say they had enjoyed all or most of the items were in primary 2!
Sharon, our ‘mentor’ managed to pop round the school to film a few activities going on in school that week and put together a little movie. We finished off the week by holding a parents’ drop in morning on the Friday as it was ‘Jog Scotland’ and the classes took their turns jogging round the measured pitch a few times in the school grounds. As we were parent helpers, we were invited to join the school in their assembly and watched the video Sharon put together and then the slideshow with 2 school pupil narrators – quite emotional. Afterwards we [parent helpers] were presented with gift tokens for a local beauticians – which was very unexpected and appreciated!
So all in all that week was very busy!
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