Live: Health Carnival

Objective: To remind children the importance of vegetables and exercise to their health.

Materials: A Powerpoint file which contains pictures, teaching materials, props, fruit-motif towels, vegetable-motif gloves, vegetables and other healthy food items.

Menu

Using a large number of vegetable ingredients

Traffic Lights Buns

Pumpkin Soup

Tomato Cup

Assorted Mushroom and Broccoli Stir-fry

Cucumber and Zucchini Roll

Let’s GO!

1. Activity recap: Using the pictures in the Powerpoint file, the teacher reminds children of the importance of eating vegetables and doing exercise to their health. For their good performance throughout the entire project, the children get towels as a reward.
   
   
2. ‘The Crocodile Who Eats Vegetable’ drama show: All children participate in a drama performance. According to their level, the children are assigned to do different movements which interpret the plot. For example, the age-two class perform simple physical actions, while the age-three class present the vegetable teaching materials and the age-four-to-six class present some more organised contents. The story begins with a farmer who works hard with a crocodile who loves vegetables. The crocodile eats vegetables every day and grows up healthily as a result. Some students play the role of doctors and villagers, who spread the message of healthy eating and active living to the rest of the children.
   
   
3. ‘Fitness Dance’: Children wear the vegetable gloves and stand in a line. They perform a dance choreographed by the teachers.
   
   
4. ‘Vegetable Smart Healthy Lunch’: Last but not least, parents and teachers prepare meals from the five winning recipes from the EatSmart Vegetable Recipe Competition.

Stage 3: Sharing Platform

Ms. Wong Yuk Hing , Headmistress

• For the StartSmart@school.hk Pilot Project, we re-designed our curriculum to include vegetable topics. We also held a lot of activities and encourage parents’ participation. As a result, children experienced a lot at home and at school. They now understand more and live in favour of vegetables; for example, some two- or three-year olds have learnt more names of vegetables, and some older children have got to know the nutritional composition of vegetables. At the end of the project, they were willing to eat some of the food items they had used to dislike.
  
  
• Do not force vegetables on children. To encourage them to eat vegetables, we should rely on circumstances. Therefore, we included ‘nutrition’ and ‘health messages’ in our curriculum so as to gradually impart the messages to the children.
  
  
• Things don’t change overnight. The end of an academic year does not necessarily mean our mission has accomplished. Health promotion should be reinforced and sustained. We will continue to include vegetables in our daily menu. Through the workshops organised by the Department of Health, our staff members can better follow the instruction on choosing ingredients and thus improve our school diet.
  
  
• We also strongly believe that children can develop a healthy eating habit and proper exercise pattern day by day throughout their school life.

Parent Blog

Mrs. So:

The Department of Health’s Parent Guide is very useful. I often refer to the diet ratio as shown by the Food Pyramid. Before that, I only knew about having more vegetables and less meat. Now I know I should have more grains and cereals as well, and use less oil and less sugar. I also prepare brown rice for my children. I follow the suggested menu quite often.

Mr. Chiu:

Too much fish bores the children. I give them fish every other meal, or simply make a fish soup or tomato soup so as to maintain a balanced diet for them.

Eugenie:

My kids like sushi but not cucumbers. So I put some cucumber inside sushi rolls and encourage them to try.

Dorothy:

The project taught us how to choose nutritious food for children; it also changed the eating habit of my family. My chubby husband used to eat a lot a meat. For the sake of our children’s health, we now eat more vegetables, and so we now visit the doctor less often.

Fanny:

I encourage my kid to join me in cooking and tasting the vegetable dish right afterwards. We eat whatever is cooked with the kid’s participation, even though it is something we don’t like very much.

Conclusion

The school appreciates very much the StartSmart@school.hk Pilot Project organised by the Department of Health. Because of it, the curriculum is redesigned with addition of topics like nutrition, physical activity, health and environmental protection. Parents have been actively participating in the project. In a few months’ time, from ‘Spring Fair’ to ‘Health Carnival’, children learnt much more about healthy diet and practised what they had learnt.