An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away!

[Guest]

Hey!!

 

Just wondered has anybody got any top tips on how to implement a Healthy snack time in a day nursery?

 

For example :

Where would be the best place to have it?

Would you need to plan and document it?

How to get parents involved etc.

 

At the moment we do a" rolling snack time" on a Friday morning, the children are able to decide when they would like a snack which works really well, but i want to start doing it daily and iam a bit stuck on how it would work in the long run?

 

Hope that makes sense,

Look forward to your ideas!!x

[narnia]

hmm, i guess you could ask parents to contribute 'healthy items' to a kitty of food,say, a piece of fruit each?? and the contributions could be photographed??but be aware that some families might not be able to take part, due to financial constraints? or, ask parents to help their children find pictures of healthy foods in magazines, or the giveaway leaflets from supermarkets??healthy foods from around the world..........ideas from parents who are from various cultures?? at my old group, we used to give the children a biscuit and a glass of squash...but when I became supervisor, I changed this to a healthy eating session and both biscuits and squash went out of the window! I brought in fruit, nice things such as breadsticks,chapattis, naan breads and as many different types of fruit as i could lay my hands on (dragon fruit is a weird one....looks like grey frogspawn in the middle!llooks beautiful, but isn't particularly nice to eat)Social services actually came and took photographs of our snack time to show other groups as a model of good practice.Now my old group is trumpeting on their adverts that 'ofsted liked our snacks'.so a compliment to me I guess?? :)

[Guest]

Yes definatley Narnia!! Sounds great thank you!!

[Guest]

We run our rolling snack bar at every session and parents are asked to bring in 1 or 2 pieces of fruit per week and put in our fruit basket. They also tend to bring in other items that are healthy without being asked!!!!

 

Send out a letter informing parents about your new healthy eating scheme explaining about the fruit per week. I also have a laminated sign in the window just as a gentle reminder.

[Guest]

We have been running a rolling snack bar for some time now and we did start off buying fruit etc and asking the parents for contributions but the donations were a little spasmotic (sp) and therefore it seemed to cost us a fortune. We decided to ask the parents/children to provide a small healthy snack in a named container. On the whole it has worked for us brilliantly! Some children bring fruit, some yoghurts, some crackers etc etc but it is their choice. It links in nicely with independance skills too (going to collect their lunch box, putting back etc etc).

 

Obviously what works for one setting may not work for another but its just an idea.

 

Jenni

[Inge]

We ask parents for donations of fruit etc each week, we provide a list of what we would like each week and parents indicate they will be bring some in, not all parents can afford to provide but most do and it works out as once a month approximately. They alos have option of bringing in own ideas, most will now just bring in something when they go shopping in addition to the list. Always have good supply, only time we buy is first week of term.

 

Parents did suggest a donation to pay for this each week, but we decided against this as it meant someone would then have to do the shopping in own time unpaid..this way saves us the hassle!!

 

We have fruits, cheese, vegetables, bread sticks, etc children enjoy the variety.

 

Inge

[tess]

We are very similiar we ask the parents for a donation of a portion a fruit a day and this varies from an apple - to a punnet of strawberries (the local fruit shop has great offers and the parents often take advantage of these)

 

We are very lucky as we have a parade of shops very close by and we take 2 children each day shopping for other bits we need - milk, crackers, bits for cooking.

 

The children write their own shopping list and each have a bag to collect their shopping.

 

I really want to make a snack board this term to show what the children can choose from though and get them to select the fruits. I have just brought a new book I eat Fruit - whih looks great as it has pictures of the fruit whole, cut and sliced.

[Guest]

How do you guys set the snack bar up? Is it a table with bowls of fruit etc ?

Do you have a" healthy" display with books etc next to it?

 

Just debating how it would work in my setting?

[HappyMaz]

at my old group, we used to give the children a biscuit and a glass of squash...but when I became supervisor, I changed this to a healthy eating session and both biscuits and squash went out of the window! I brought in fruit, nice things such as breadsticks,chapattis, naan breads and as many different types of fruit as i could lay my hands on (dragon fruit is a weird one....looks like grey frogspawn in the middle!llooks beautiful, but isn't particularly nice to eat)Social services actually came and took photographs of our snack time to show other groups as a model of good practice.Now my old group is trumpeting on their adverts that 'ofsted liked our snacks'.so a compliment to me I guess?? :)

Good for you. Did you get much resistance from the staff? I remember being horrified when I joined my group that the staff took turns to bring in snack for the grown ups. So while the children were eating raisins and yoghurt, the staff were tucking into cream cakes, chocolate biscuits or hot buttered bagels etc. That was one of the first things I got rid of. How to win friends and influence people...

 

One local group gives a biscuit and squash to children at snack time and got an 'excellent' in all categories at their recent Ofsted inspection....

 

Maz