Theme: Health and Nutrition Day 3

My background is in health and wellness so I was very excited about this theme.  Bonus, I wanted to get into the garden with the chicks. We’re into our third week so the routine is getting a little better.  I usually have the girls start at the table and draw while we’re waiting for everyone to arrive.  Then to the carpet for our “circle time.”  Tank likes to take the lead.  The girls were very receptive. It was really cute.

I promise, my photography skills will improve.  Now that I’m seeing these, I’ll be sure to close my closets too.  We talked about what they learned with the other aunties.  I went over the rules of the garden very carefully. I was very clear since Hal picked 2 of my tomatoes way before they were ready the day before.  Then out to the garden.   We looked at the green beans that were already growing.  We talked about the zucchini flowers that would grow into zucchini.  They let me know what they didn’t like.  We also talked about how to care for their vegetables.

We planted sugar snap peas and green beans around the edge of this square raised beds.  I’ll add a teepee shaped form for the vines to grow on.  If all goes well, we’ll have a teepee that they can go into.

We alternated peas and beans as a preview to next weeks patterns unit.

The silverado in the background was a little distraction…and a source of tears.

I don’t know about this blogging stuff.  I have to make sure all the backgrounds are neat and clean next time.  The girls worked hard so we took a break and had orange juice pops.

Apparently we worked really hard and needed to run through sprinklers in the front yard.  You’ve probably noticed our chicks’ think it’s a clothing optional school.

Of course we can’t resist the puddles.

Back inside for lunch.  As part of our lunch we made apple smiles.  We spread peanut butter onto two apple wedges (lips) and then sandwich marshmallow (teeth) between the two slices.  Smiles!

Sort of.

We found out Tank really doesn’t like peanut butter…really!!

Sorry Tank.  We’ll do Nutella next time.

Theme: Health & Nutrition Day 1

Promoting healthy eating is a bit tricky with this group.  After all, Pooh Bear’s mom, Corie is a pastry chef!  When I have a chocolate craving, I call her.  She always has something on hand.  When Uniqua sees Corie at church, there’s no, “hello,” she just looks for “the bag.”  The one with all the treats.

We are generally healthy in our home, especially since my husband is a health nut, but I LOVE my sweets and junk.  I just have to sneak.

So here we go to health and nutrition.  We started off re-visiting our lesson about our body and how important it was to exercise AND eat healthy.  They remembered the lesson and we did some exercises.  Here’s an action shot of jumping jacks.

After their “work out,” we talked about how important it was to drink lots of water and we had a drink.  If you see random kids in the pictures, my kids were home from school today, so I had some extra helpers.

We talked more about healthy eating and I filled up the shopping cart with a variety of foods.  They had to sort the foods as “healthy” or “unhealthy.”  I think Pooh Bear and her sister were a little taken back at the concept that cookies fall into the unhealthy (bad) category.  I’m sure their mom will set things straight when they get home.

Later, we made a healthy smoothie.  We make smoothies almost every day in my house and we just use what we have.  You never know what you’re gonna get, but it always comes out tasting great.  I give most of the credit to Vitamix which I LOVE!  We used frozen fruit, prunes (great sweetener), spinach (the Vitamix grinds it up so small the kids can’t even taste it), carrots, powdered milk (it’s much cheaper than using regular milk which runs $5 a gallon in Hawai’i), and bananas.  Don’t let the color of those banana peels scare you.  They were just fine on the inside.

The chicks (and helpers) took turns loading up the blender.

Here’s how it looked when we were done blending it.

They loved it!  It was a great day and since I had help, they had a picnic outside.

For the final activity, I put a variety of snacks out and they made their own snack mix to take home.

I don’t know about the other chicks, but Uniqua walked around with her snack mix until she ate it all.

Success!