Mini Messenger

TERM 4 • ISSUE 22SUMMER 2014

Mini Messenger

• What’s on in 2015• Spotlight on Balamara Preschool• Fresh Festive Party Ideas• Dental Health at Rhonda’s Cottage

Information for Directors and Educators

WelcomeWelcome to Term 4 and the festive season! We are pleased to say that over 80% of Early Childhood & Education Care Services (ECECS) in the Northern Sydney area have now attended Munch & Move training. For those educators interested in improving their abilities teaching fundamental movement skills and embedding healthy eating into the daily program the two hour ‘FMS in Action’ and ‘Teaching Kids about Food’ workshops will continue to

run in 2015. A workshop flyer will be sent out in the New Year when dates are locked in for all our additional workshops.

We would like to thank all of our wonderful Munch & Move services for making our job a rewarding experience and for all your passion and effort to make Munch & Move sustainable in childcare services across Northern Sydney. We look forward to supporting you further in 2015.

Enjoy a happy and safe festive season!

Northern Sydney Munch & Move team

OCT14 CATALOGUE NUMBER: NS08397C

What’s in this issue ?

• Distribution of the new Caring for Children resource: Most of you would be familiar with the Caring for Children and Caring for Infants resources on food and nutrition. These resources have been combined and reviewed in 2014 and the new Caring for Children resource is due to be published in December 2014 for distribution to Early Childhood Services across NSW in 2015. As a Munch & Move service you will be receiving a FREE copy of the new Caring for Children

resource in 2015! Cooks will have the opportunity to attend a Caring for Children workshop in Term 2 2015, to learn more about maximising the use of the resource.

• FINAL Munch & Move Training: Our last two Munch & Move training days will be held on:

- Wednesday 25th February in Ryde

- Thursday 19th March in Dee Why

What’s on in 2015

www.nshealthpromotion.com.au

If you have any staff members who have not been to Munch & Move Training this is their last chance. The Northern Sydney Munch & Move team will be there to continue to support services but the training and recruitment phase of the program will end after March 2015.

• Additional Workshops: We will continue to run our Fundamental Movement Skills and Teaching Kids about Food Workshops in 2015. These are designed to help support educators to implement activities and provide some new ideas around how these activities can be taught.

Balamara Preschool has implemented a range of great sustainable initiatives at their service to promote healthy eating and physical activity. Educational leader Andrea says the ‘Munch & Move resources are simple and easy to understand and the additional workshops are very practical, they provide good everyday strategies that become a part of your programming’.

To encourage more fresh food, ‘Lunchbox of the Day’ was created, rewarding children by nominating them as the ‘worm farm helper’. Children started insisting their parents pack them more fruit and vegetables!

‘Kids in the Kitchen’ started after Balamara secured a grant and purchased some cooking equipment to broaden the range of cooking experiences they could offer the children. They also established a small but productive potted garden of edibles.

Here are the children harvesting vegetables from their potted gardens and using some of their new cooking appliances to cook the vegetables!

Families were invited to cook with the children and together they have made Indian roti with zucchini, mint dip, beetroot leaf salad, ricotta pancakes, fruity French toast, wholemeal carrot pikelets, Spanish tortilla and avocado smoothies. The recipes were shared with families which encouraged more families to

become involved. Due to its success, Balamara invited all families to share their favourite healthy recipe with a photograph. These were compiled into a recipe book which was gifted to families at the end of the year.

Children at Balamara are exposed to Fundamental movement skills (FMS) every afternoon following rest time, during their ‘exercise class’. This is a 30 minute session comprised of games which incorporate FMS. When the weather is bad educators move the games indoors or set up indoor obstacle courses using tunnels, steps, mini-tramp and stepping stones. Educators also use FMS for transitions throughout the day stating it is ‘the perfect opportunity to observe the children’s confidence and ability with FMS’.

Educating families on the importance of restricting screen time for children has been a challenge for Balamara,. Information has been included in their newsletter about the importance of restricting screen time and the next step is to send families a survey about how much time their children are spending engaged in screen time. Director, Kerry suspects the results might be a real ‘eye opener’ for families!

A big congratulations to Kerry and her team at Balamara for their excellent work in embedding healthy eating and physical activity so well into their daily curriculum!

Spotlight on Balamara Preschool

Here are the children harvesting vegetables from their potted gardens and using some of their new cooking appliances to cook the vegetables!

Photo from the cookbook that was distributed to families

After receiving the Munch & Move Health Week resources on Dental Health week, Maria Theodorou the Director of Rhonda’s Cottage decided to run some activities with the children about healthy eating and dental health.

Maria said “After finding out through Munch & Move that it was Dental Health Week, we contacted several local dentists and were fortunate to have a Dental Hygienist named Miss Elizabeth come out to pay us a visit”. Miss Elizabeth asked the children questions to see what they already knew about Dental Health and answered all of their curious questions. She demonstrated to the children the correct way of

brushing their teeth and the children then had a turn at ‘brushing their teeth’ using their little fingers. “We had a big discussion around healthy snacks and why they were good for our bodies and our teeth”. Miss Elizabeth reminded the children not to suck on their fingers as this could damage their teeth.

All Health event resources can be found at www.nshealthpromotion.com.au on the Munch & Move page under ‘Health Events’.

If you have any concerns about a child’s dental health, the Northern Sydney Public Dental Clinic provides free dental health services and we encourage you to pass on their details to any families that

could benefit from such a service. To contact the Public Dental Clinic call 1300 789 404.

Dental Health at Rhonda’s Cottage

Munch & Move® Contacts:Jenna Bilton (Northern Beaches) (Munch & Move Co-ordinator) Ph: 9976 9826 E: jenna.bilton@health.nsw.gov.au

Nicole Tate (Munch & Move Co-ordinator)Ph: 9976 9876Email: Nicole.Tate@health.nsw.gov.au

Nada Curac (North Shore) Ph: 9462 9568 E: Nada.Curac@health.nsw.gov.au

Claire Southwood-Jones (Ku-ring-gai) Ph: 9462 9572 E: Claire.SouthwoodJones@health.nsw.gov.au

Kezia Okulicz (Ryde/Hornsby)Ph: 9462 9569E: Kezia.Okulicz@health.nsw.gov.au

Try these simple and healthy recipe ideas for your service’s festive season celebrations. Christmas is a perfect time to reinforce healthy eating messages at your service by showing that healthy snacks can be fun too!

Christmas Fruit Salad

Chop up some green and red apples for colour and combine in a bowl with some chopped celery and a handful of dried cranberries. Pour some natural unsweetened yogurt over the top and combine thoroughly. For some extra Christmas zing squeeze an orange in to the mix. Serve in clear cups, yum!

Edible ornaments

This is a great Christmas party snack idea as well as a fun activity for children. Give each child a wholegrain cracker and a spoonful of low fat cream cheese. Show the children how to spread the cream cheese on the crackers with a plastic knife. Combine colourful vegetables such as cooked broccoli stems, cooked peas, diced capsicum and cooked carrot in a bowl. Give a small handful of the cooked ‘Christmas veg’ to the children and allow them to decorate their ‘ornaments’ with the veggies.

Vegie Christmas Tree

Presenting vegies in a festive way is both fun and a great way to encourage fussy eaters! You can use green vegetables such as broccoli, snow peas, celery or baby spinach to create an edible Christmas tree. Arrange the green vegetables on a large platter to form a Christmas tree shape. Carrot pieces, capsicum slices and cherry tomatoes can make the ‘decorations’ for the tree. You could use bean sprouts as ‘tinsel’, in fact the options are endless and the children will be sure to have some great ideas too! Try making a ‘Vege tree’ and a ‘Fruit tree.’

Christmas Fruit Kebabs

Assemble some green and red ‘fruit kebabs’ using delicious summer fruits such as strawberries, grapes, watermelon, apples. Serve with a natural low fat yogurt as a dipping sauce.

Fresh Festive Party Ideas!

Racing Reindeer RelayGet into the Christmas Spirit with a Reindeer (galloping) Relay.

1. Set up a ‘around the world’ course with 5 destinations (baskets).

2. Split children into even groups. Ask children to name their group after one of Santa’s reindeer.

3. Give each child a present (object) to deliver when it is their turn.

4. On ‘go’ children gallop around the world and deliver the present to one of the 5 destinations, continuing to the end to ‘high 5’ the next child.