Staying Healthy...

During times like these one of the most important things we can do is to stay healthy both mentally and physically. Establishing some kind of routine when, for most of us that sense of normality has disappeared, is ESSENTIAL to our mental well-being.
Mealtimes can be a great way to help with this routine and establishing times when you can sit down together can be vital to maintain some ritual and routine your daily lives. It is also a great way to involve the children in helping out with daily chores, feel included and establish healthy eating habits as well as being a FANTASTIC home learning tool.
​At Mucky Pups our snack and lunchtimes are a valuable learning time. We prepare the food together, set the table and clean up after ourselves. Our snack is always healthy and nutritious and we set our menu's using; Food Trust's, Eat Better Start Better programme. The children also get to taste food from around the world and request snacks they love to share with their friends. We have made; soups, pizzas, cakes, biscuits and smoothies as part of learning.
Here are some ideas to try;
You can explore foods from around the world and find out about where the country is and what other foods they eat. We particularly loved eating croissants when we were learning about France.
Baking includes loads of Science and Maths. Think about all the weighing and measuring, the cutting shapes for biscuits and watching how the mixture changes as you add different ingredients; dry to wet, solid to liquid and colour changes and so on.
​Making smoothies and pizzas can include trying new fruits and vegetables, different combinations as well as the physical development of cutting, chopping, dicing and grating.
You make pizza faces or you could name your new family smoothie!
Now the rules are relaxing a little too why not pack a picnic and go to the park. You could get some great new ideas for when everything is a little more normal and you're packing up lunches again.

We also include recipes in our "Home Learning " letters each month and many of the recipes and ideas we have are from the NHS; "Change for Life" website. Click the picture to take you to the page.
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Everyone's a winner; you get help with something you would have been doing anyway and your child is learning at the same time.
Why not give it a go? And if you do send us some pictures via email, Facebook or Capture to show us what you've been doing.

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