there’s no pressure.

Food and Fitness for a Healthy Child	November 2020

Farrell Area School District

Festive cornucopias This Thanksgiving, let your
child add healthy mini cor-nucopias to your holiday table. He could fill waffle cones with plain non-fat Greek yogurt and add fruit and nuts (perhaps grapes, cut-up oranges, and walnuts). He can tie a colorful rib-
bon around each cone—the decora-
tions will make a perfect appe-
tizer or dessert.

Strike a pose!
Your youngster can use her own body weight to hold poses that will build strength in her arms and legs. Challenge her to do a handstand against the wall, get into a plank position, or balance on one foot. Make it a family contest to see who holds each pose the longest.

Nearly two-thirds of children drink a sugary beverage every day.
Instead of buying soda or sports drinks, fill a pitcher with water each morning, and ask your youngster to decide on a healthy add-in (cucum-ber slices, frozen strawberries). Refrigerate, and have him fill a water bottle, then keep it with him to drink and refill throughout the day.

Just for fun

Q: What reads and lives in an apple? A: A bookworm.

© 2020 Resources for Educators, a division of CCH Incorporated

Turn the tables on picky eating

“Mac and cheese again? You had it yesterday and the day before—and the day before that!” Sound familiar? Encourage your youngster to eat a wider variety of foods with ideas like these.

Be matter-of-fact
Your child may need to be exposed to a new food 10–20 times
before she’ll accept it. Keep trying! Have	smell or texture. Maybe she’ll say lentil her put a small serving on her plate every	curry looks similar to Grandma’s baked time you serve a food. If she says she	beans. She’ll be more comfortable tast-won’t like it, tell her that’s okay—she	ing the food if it feels a little more might change her mind later. She’ll be	familiar.
more likely to take a bite (or two) if	Find winning combinations
Pair food your child loves with one Appeal to her senses	she’s not crazy about or hasn’t tried. The

“This lentil curry is delicious!” Let	combination of flavors may turn her into your youngster see you enjoying a new	a fan. For example, top fish with sweet dish, and invite her to get to know it.	pineapple rings. Or offer her just about Ask her to think of foods she likes that	any vegetable with melted cheese, and are the same color or that have a similar	watch her dig in.

Add learning to family walks

Turn an ordinary walk around the neigh-borhood into a learning adventure for your child. You’ll all get exercise—and he’ll explore math and science. Here’s how.

Collect (free) math supplies.Your young-ster can carry a bag for gathering acorns, colorful leaves, pinecones, and other natu-ral objects from the ground. Then, he could sort, count, and graph the items.

Observe nature.Encourage your child to carry a notebook and look for animals and plants on your walk. He might sketch and jot down notes about spiders, chipmunks, pine trees, and chrysanthemums.

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

Southwestern.
Spoon refried beans
Fruity breakfast.
Cover
Nutrition Nuggets

Aim for more whole foods A whole food is one that’s found in nature,

such as a banana or a carrot. We can eat it without adding ingredients like sugar, salt, or fat. Teach your child to eat more whole foods—and fewer processed ones—with these activities.

Rank foods.Ask your youngster to pick a dozen foods from your kitchen. Then, help him line them up from least to most
processed. For instance, fresh fruits and veg-etables could come first. In the middle, he would put foods that have been changed a lit-
tle but are still good for him (applesauce with no

November 2020 • Page 2

added sugar, plain popcorn, and whole-wheat bread). Finally, he
can add any highly processed items like chips, cookies, or sugary cereals.

Make smart swaps.Together, create closer-to-whole ver-sions of processed foods your
child enjoys. Rather than eat-ing toaster pastries for break-
fast, he could toast whole-wheat bread and top it with peach slices
and cinnamon. Instead of pro-cessed deli meats and cheeses, he
might make a sandwich with last night’s leftover turkey and sliced avocado.

Books about healthy eating

My son John’s class is doing a nutri-tion unit. The teacher emailed a list of books about healthy eating, and we got a few from the library.
First, John and I read To Market, To Market by Nikki McClure about a boy and his mom at a farmers’ market. We learned how foods like honey and goat cheese get from farm to table.
Then we read Cora
Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore about a girl
who helps her mother make
a traditional Filipino dish.
We made pancit using the recipe in the book. John discovered that he likes rice noodles, so now we have a new option for when we make noodle dishes.
Reading seems like an easy way to teach John about healthy eating—and the books are inspiring us to cook together.

O U R	P U R P O S E
	
To provide busy parents with practical ways to promote healthy nutrition and physical activity for their children.
Resources for Educators,
a division of CCH Incorporated
128 N. Royal Avenue • Front Royal, VA 22630 800-394-5052 • rfecustomer@wolterskluwer.com www.rfeonline.com
Nutrition Nuggets™ is reviewed by a registered dietitian. Consult a physician before beginning any major change in diet or exercise.
ISSN 1935-4630

© 2020 Resources for Educators, a division of CCH Incorporated

Sidewalk games

Your youngster can turn your driveway or a playground blacktop into a game board. Here are two she can choose from.

Bull’s-eye
Have your child use sidewalk chalk to draw a target with five rings labeled 1–5
(5 goes in the bull’s-eye). Take turns stand-ing six feet from the target and tossing five
small rocks at it. Add the numbers your rocks landed on, and pick up your rocks. The player with the highest score after five rounds wins.

Chutes and Ladders
Make a life-sized version of this classic game. Your youngster can draw a grid with boxes, number them 1–16, and add several chutes (slides) and ladders. Start by the 1. Take turns rolling a die and hopping the number of squares rolled. Land at the bot-tom of a ladder, and hop to the top. Land at the top of a chute, and you must hop to the bottom! Win by being first to reach the last box (by exact count).

Tasty tortilla roll-ups
Keep a package of	yogurt and spread on a tortilla. Add whole-wheat tortillas on hand for	diced hard-boiled egg, chopped celery, healthy meals and snacks. With just a	and sliced scallions.
little slicing-and-dicing help from
her own creations.
you, your child can make and roll up	(canned, low-sodium) onto a tortilla. Add shredded low-fat pepper jack
Barbecue chicken.Cover a tortilla with	cheese, diced tomatoes, and diced green a thin layer of low-sodium barbecue	bell peppers.
sauce. Top with cooked
carrots and cabbage.
chicken and shredded	a tortilla with low-fat cream cheese. Arrange
Egg salad.Stir a few	frozen (thawed) blue-drops of mustard into                                                           berries and sliced straw-nonfat plain Greek                                                               berries on top.