Health, Nutrition, and Wellness Presentation

REFERENCE

Dusenbury, L. (2012). Creating a Safe Classroom Environment. Retrieved from: http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/creating-safe-classroom-environment-climate.shtml

Groark, C. J., & Song, L. A. (2012). Health and nutrition of children. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Krywko, K. (2008). Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Children. Retrieved from: http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleId=748

Shaw, G. (2015). Good-Life Activities for Your Family. Retrieved from: http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/good-life-activities-your-family

USDA. (2014). Curricula and Lesson Plans. Retrieved from:http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/professional-and-career-resources/nutrition-education/curricula-and-lesson-plans

Safety Resourses

Web-based: Teacher Planet is a website that provides tool and lesson plans on child safety. It a community of teacher sharing and lokking for information on child saftey.

Text: The Safe Child BookBy Sherryll Kraizer.A Commonsense Approach to Protecting Children and Teaching Children to Protect Themselves -

Saftey Strategies

"First, be sure the classroom is clean, orderly, and inviting. Look at your classroom and ask yourself if it is a place that is distracting, or a place that encourages students to do their best"(Dusenbury,2012)

"Organize the physical space of your classroom for movement and interaction. Make it easy for students to pull their desks together to do small group work. Set it up so that it is easy for you to walk around. Your movement around the classroom helps make your teaching more engaging. It also helps with classroom control"(Dusenbury, 2012)

Safety Family activity

Practice cleaning up. Sing the clean up song with your child as you help them put away toys. Explain the importance of not leaving toys around and explain how other may get injured if all the toys are not put way neatly. At the end reward them for their efforts.

Nutrition Family Activity

My Plate Activity- have your kids divide their plate into four sections fruit, grains, vegetables, and protein. Have them color each section in different colors. Then assist them in three foods that belong in each section.

Nutrition Stratergies

Also,caregivers can report a child's delight in trying a new few, dislike of a newly introduced vegetable, and possible food allergies that may arise from a particular food offering.

Another, strategy would be to create a form that caregivers could fill in each day and give to parents at pick-up time reporting their child's eating habits for the day (Groark, 2012).

As educators, we have to remember that “children spend up to eight hours per day in a school setting. So while the students are in my care I will utilize that time to "discuss nutritious foods with children, make recommendations, and influence the choices children make"(Groark, 2012, pg.1.4).

Safety

Obstacle: Food Safety- 4-year-old Zariel brings in questionable-looking cookies to share with her class. In order to avoid issues I would make sure our school food safety plan is located where food is stored, prepared, or served (USDA, 2014). And, lastly I would send out notices to parents asking that they restrict sending in homemade, unpackaged goods due to allergies, etc.

Obstacles: Several of the children in my center have special dietary needs. Zariya is allergic to milk.

Menu:

.6 ounces low-fat milk: 1 milk serving

Peanut butter (1½ tablespoons) on ½ slice of whole-grain bread: ½ protein serving and 1 grain serving

3 ounces blueberry-flavored yogurt: ½ protein serving

½ cup strawberry slices: 1 vegetable/fruit/juice serving

½ cup steamed green beans: 1 vegetable/fruit/juice serving

Zariya is allergic to milk the 6 ounces low-fat milk would have to be removed a substituted with lactose- free milk, almond milk or maybe soy milk. The peanut butter sandwich would be fine but I would also remove the yogurt because it’s considered a dairy product and replace it with a smoothie made with soy milk or a coconut yogurt. Also, to make sure the rest of the staff now that Zariya has allergies I would have her wear a red bracelet that says allergies and have her sit at a table with others that have special dietary needs and have someone that is experience in allergies sit with her.

"Safety is another important component of children's wellness. This component includes behaviors and practices that focus on protecting children from danger, risks, accidents, and injuries" (Groark, 2012,pg 1.2)."Creating a classroom that is organized and that is characterized by mutual respect makes it a lot easier to teach effectively, and one of the most important things teachers can do to promote learning is to create classroom environments where students feel safe" (Dusenbury, 2012, pg.1).

In this presentation I will be explaining what health, nutrition, and safety includes in early childhood classrooms. I plan to describe at least two strategies to support health and wellness in classrooms. In addition, I will be including several resources that my fellow colleagues can utilize in their planning and implementation. And, lastly I plan to create either a family activity or newsletter that can be sent home to support family engagement in fostering children's overall health & wellness; along with plans for how to deal with obstacles teachers may encounter.

Health Resources for Teachers

Nutrition Resources for Teachers

Nutrition

"Nutrition includes the nutrients in food, such as vitamins, mineral carbohydrates, protein, and fat, the amount of intake, and the processes by which a person takes in food.Good nutrition is needed for good health and physical development, including the growth of bones, organs, muscles, and the brain" (Groark, 2012,pg.1.2)

Health Family Activity

Web-based:http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/professional-and-career-resources/nutrition-education/curricula-and-lesson-plans

"The Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) is a leader in on-line global nutrition information. Located at the National Agricultural Library (NAL) (link is external) of USDA (link is external), the FNIC Web site contains over 2500 links to current and reliable nutrition information"(USDA,2015).

Text: Real Food for Healthy Kids by Tracey Seaman and Tanya Wenman Steel. This text can be used when planning meals.

Plan an special dinner night and have your children assist. According to experts it's not all about the food but more about the connection. Simply, "spending time together builds healthy families and healthy kids" (Shaw, 2015).

Obstacle: A child shows up to class with a their lunch box full of unhealthy snacks.

Hold a parent- teacher conference. Then, pick a day where majority of the parents will be able to attend and invite the local pedestrian to the class to give details on the effects of childhood obesity and unhealthy eating habits.

Health, Nutrition, and Wellness Presentation

Text:Nutrition, Health, and Safety for Young Children: Promoting Wellness. "The book is designed to give future teachers practical, applied, easy-to-understand information that will prepare them to serve young children in the family child care, childcare center, preschool and early primary school setting. The text allows teachers to teach and model healthy practices with regard to nutrition, health, and safety" (Pearson,2011) .

Web-based:Nourish Interactive is a website that provides nutrition educators and healthcare providers with a variety of interactive nutrition tools to assist you in teaching the key elements of nutrition to children and parents. (Nourish Interactive, 2015). http://www.nourishinteractive.com/nutrition-education.

Strategies to support Health and Wellness

in Classrooms

In relation to article, Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Children

"The first thing to consider when creating a healthy classroom is the physical space of the area" (Krywko, 2008, pg. 1). One strategy might be to create a center-based classroom environment equipped with child-sized furniture, work space, and open shelving accessible to learners throughout the day; space for large and small-group participation.

Consistent with the article, Healthy Classroom, Healthy Children "the classroom can be a great environment for children to learn healthy attitudes about their bodies, along with the best ways to feed and move their bodies" (Krywko, 2008,pg.1). Assist children in making healthy food choices by introducing new foods.

Health

According to the text, Health and Nutrition "Professionals think of health as the condition of a person's body and mind, which is unique to each person" (Groark, 2012, pg 1.1)

Factors that affects children's health:

1) Hereditary

2) Environment

As educators the only factor we can control or improve is environment. "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d.), children need environments that meet their needs so they are not at risk of compromised health and learning delays" (Groark, 2012, pg.1.1).

Running head: PRESENTATION 1

Health, Nutrition, and Wellness Presentation

Aisha Walker

ECE 214: Nutrition and Health of Children and Families

Shealiah Jordan

October 2, 2015

As educators we are bestowed the responsibility of sharing knowledge.The purpose of this presentation is to do just that, to share the knowledge I have gained with my colleagues in order to support a collaborative approach to shared health, nutrition, and safety goals. Considering that, I have been selected along with a team of teacher to create a professional development training for our colleagues that focuses on enhancing effective health, nutrition, and safety practices for the center.