Healthy bodies, brains and bellies part 1

Healthy Bodies, Brains and Bellies Part 1

Hello everybody, today I am going to speak from my heart and talk about a touchy subject.  There is a crisis in our country, the food we eat and the lack of exercise we allow can lead to childhood obesity, ADHD and many more things.  It is scary how many children are overweight and the long term damaging effects obesity can cause.  There are many factors that have contributed to this crisis:  fast food, modern conveniences, television, and technology.  Even if a child has a high metabolism they still need to eat healthy.  It is sad how many chemicals and dyes are in our foods these days.  The more color it has the more a child is drawn to it and wants to eat it.  I strongly believe that a lot of the behavioral and medical problems that we deal with in children can be attributed to their food. 

In part one I am going to discuss healthy bellies and how we can make healthy eating fun! 

Healthy eating at home prepares kids mentally and physically for their day.  Create a healthy home environment by offering your kids nutritious options for family meals, lunches and snacks.  Healthy eating isn’t always enough.  You also need to educate your family on why and how to eat healthy.  I will be the first to tell you it is not easy to stay the course with healthy family eating.  It is a battle that requires constant planning and dedication.  Over the last year since my daughter was diagnosed with ADHD I have been on a quest to figure out what diet works for her and our family’s busy schedule.  When I started researching food dyes I was shocked at how many foods had them in it and what the negative side effects were.  Here are some articles on food dyes Click Here and Here, when you have time check out this research on food dyes.  We try to only allow “school lunch” for our kids once a week.  This gives me better control over what they are eating.  As a busy family there are definitely days when we do eat unhealthy foods.  But there is also a balance.  Recently our family has been trying to eat more "clean".  We try to eat no processed foods, dyes, low sugar and only brown pastas and breads.  Since we began "clean eating" and taking Advocare products I have personally lost 40lbs, my husband hasn't had any migraines and my daughter with ADHD has improved her focus.  The question is how do we make healthy eating fun?

One way to make healthy eating fun is to have a “mascot”.  The very hungry caterpillar is a great mascot.  He ate healthy and it helped him grow.  Reading together will also aid in family bonding. 

Allowing children to help with food prep will get them exited to eat more healthy.

Here comes the fun part!  What can we put in our kids lunches and what can we give them for snacks that is fun and healthy?? 

I like to start every “fun” project I do with a theme.  It organizes my brain and helps me come up with better ideas.  We have weekly themes at preschool so you could use the same themes or come up with your own family themes.  After you come up with themes you should plan a menu.  Start with a week’s worth and include your kids in the planning and shopping.  This will be a great way to educate them on cooking, family time and healthy eating. 

Here is my fun snacks and foods pinterest page for ideas.  The ideas on this page are not all healthy but there is a wealth of healthy kid lunch ideas.

http://pinterest.com/kidzoneteacher/kid-snacks-and-food/

I hope you enjoyed these fun ideas!!  Let me know if you would like more information on My weight loss journey!

Rachel Supalla

Director Discovery Kidzone Montessori School

Owner www.discoverykidzone.blogspot.com

Montessori Writing Workshop

Hi, this is Rachel from Discovery Kidzone Montessori Adventures!  Today I am going to talk about writing in preschool.  Writing in preschool, really??  What all does that entail?  Isn't that "developmentally inappropriate"?  This is a subject I have struggled with in my quest to create a well rounded preschool program.  This past year I took an online Kindergarten workshop taught by Crystal Radke from Kreative in Kinder.  In her workshop she explained how to introduce a writing workshop in an early childhood classroom. I highly recommend taking her online workshop!! I used the practices that she taught and adapted them to our Montessori program.  Not only did a writing workshop help my students become better writers but it made me a better teacher and writer.  I am going to tell you the systematic approach I use in my Modified Montessori program to introduce writing at a very young age.  

In a Montessori program we place a great deal of focus on the development of fine motor skills before we introduce writing.  I consider many of our practical life lessons an introduction to writing workshop.  

Here are a few examples:

Flower arranging, operating a dropper, push pinning, and easel painting are a few practical life activities that aid in hand eye coordination, proper pencil grip and tracking.  

As the children are mastering their fine motor skills, new materials are introduced.  Metal insets, wood letter blocks and sandpaper letters are the next step.  These materials will start the process of combining language with fine motor development.  I believe this is an important step in the writing process in order for the child to have proper developmental skills and a complete understanding of language in conjunction with one another.  

Metal insets are similar to stencils, however, they are two metal pieces.  The children practice proper pinscher grasp by grabbing the knob on the middle piece, they can trace the positive or negative piece.  This is a wonderful tool to teach writing skills.

Wooden letter pieces, playdough letters, sandpaper letters, wikki sticks, letter puzzles and bead letters are all activities we use for fine motor development, letter recognition and word work.  

Once a child is familiar with manipulating letters we begin to introduce words, in the same way as letters.  They begin by building the words before they write them.  To practice these skills we use the insta-learn board, the moveable alphabet, letter and word tiles.   

In the workshop Crystal talks about drawing pictures using 5 colors.  We use directed drawing methods to start out.  In our Handwriting without tears curriculum it teaches us to use our wooden letter pieces to build "mat man".  This teaches the children to build a picture using shapes.  

We do drawing workshops at least once a week and the progress they make in this area is amazing!!  These drawings were done in March.  

The next step in preschool writing workshop is adding labels.  We do a group writing lesson where we brainstorm and write the labels on a chart together.  During work time they draw a picture and add labels.  

Drawing and writing labels is a great step in preschool development. It teaches the children to love writing, and that writing has a purpose.  The final steps in the writing process for preschool is practice, practice, practice.  We write menus, recipes, phone numbers, food labels and any play based practice we can, to reinforce the love of writing!  I never knew how much joy a writing workshop would add to our program and I am so excited and grateful I incorporated it in this year!  I can't wait to start planning for the fall.  

Rachel Supalla 

Director and Lead Teacher 

Discovery Kidzone Montessori School

Author

Discovery Kidzone Montessori Adventures