Nutrition Archives | Little Acorns Nursery School https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/category/nutrition/ Tue, 15 Nov 2022 14:28:59 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 Microgreens: A Fun Food Growing Activity for Under-Fives https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/microgreens-a-fun-food-growing-activity-for-under-fives/ Tue, 15 Nov 2022 14:16:43 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=5280 Microgreens can be grown in trays, egg cartons, used yoghurt pots or any shallow pot or dish that has drainage.As promised in our recent Educational Food Growing post for kids, we've got another wonderful food-growing activity for children today. Whether you have a toddler, preschooler or older child, they'll love this activity and it also has a huge range of benefits. It is a fun, educational, easy and inexpensive activity that gives children an enormous feeling of achievement. It also results in the miraculous growth of delicious food that children and the whole household can eat! What's not to love, therefore, about our growing microgreens activity! Today, we explain just how easy it is.

First: What Are Microgreens?

Microgreens, also known as micro leaves, are ...]]> Educational Food Growing Activities for Kids https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/educational-food-growing-activities-for-kids/ Mon, 15 Aug 2022 07:10:33 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=5129 Nature is incredibly important for children With a little planning, care and effort, children can grow herbs, vegetables and even fruit.and that's just one of many reasons why little ones should be encouraged to learn about sowing seeds and growing their own plants. Today, we're taking that a step further by explaining how children can grow plants that will give them real, edible food! With a little planning, care and effort, children can grow herbs, vegetables and even fruit if they put their minds to it. What's more, it's possible without a garden and needn't cost a penny!

The Benefits of Children Growing Their Own Food

If they successfully grow herbs, vegetables or fruit that the family can actually eat, little ones will have an immense sense of achievement — and justifiably so. They will have learnt so much during the process too, including where plants, flowers and foodstuffs come from, how seeds germinate into plants, the relationship between flowers, pollination, seeds and fruit, caring for living things — and the circle of life itself. Children love growing and caring for plants and growing edible food is even better!That will never be more evident than when a seed has grown into a plant that bears fruit, which contains more seeds, through which the whole process can start again. Children will also love growing plants as an activity. They'll learn from the responsibility of tending to living plants and seeing the progress that seedlings make when they have cared for them. It'll be a real milestone, too, when their plants start bearing fruit (... or veg!). And — who knows — harvesting fruit, herbs and vegetables that they can eat may even get them interested in cookery and trying out more foods. All in all, growing food is a brilliant and highly educational activity for little ones.
Growing food is a fun, highly educational activity for little ones.
Take a look below for a few easy and inexpensive ways under-five children can get started.

Shop-Bought Seeds Are a Start But Free Seeds Are Even Better!

Shop-bought vegetables like peppers are full of seeds that can be grown into new plants.Seeds for herbs, vegetables and microgreens are all widely retailed in places like garden centres and even some supermarkets. Each seed packet will usually explain when and how seeds can be planted. This is perhaps the most obvious way for children to grow plants that, if all goes well, result in a healthy crop of food. However, we can be far more adventurous than that! Where is the fun in buying seeds in packets when children can get them for free? Let's take a look at some cheaper and far more creative ways that children can start things off.

Grow Free Pepper & Tomato Plants!

Seeds from shop-bought tomatoes can be saved and grown into new tomato plants.“Free” you say? Well, pretty much! Next time you have some shop-bought tomatoes and/or peppers as part of your ordinary shopping, get your little one to take a few moments to save some of the seeds. These are found within things like tomatoes, before they're eaten, and are usually discarded in the case of peppers. Such seeds can simply be spaced out on some compost or earth, watered in and a thin layer of soil or compost added on top. If these are left on the windowsill and the earth kept moist by the child over the coming days, little seedlings will soon start to appear. Our pepper plants were grown from the seeds found in shop-bought peppers. This one is about 4 weeks old.The image of the green plant shows our pepper seedling grown in this exact way — and it was incredibly easy to achieve. Ours is about 3 or 4 weeks old and it's just about ready to be “planted out” outdoors, to mature. Once mature, they should flower then sprout some new peppers! It's identical for tomatoes. If children have no garden for larger plants to be transferred to, 'grow bags' or any kind of suitable container can be used on a patio or balcony. Children will need to keep watering them every day, to keep the soil moist. Flowers will eventually appear and, with a little help from bees and insects, will be pollinated so that they eventually 'fruit'. If appropriate care and attention continues, your child will eventually end up with vegetables that can eventually ripen and be eaten. That's free tomatoes and peppers for the family, in our examples. Don't forget to remind your child to save a few more seeds, though, so they can repeat the whole process again ... and again! If you have a large enough space in a garden, your child can do a similar activity using the seeds from squashes, pumpkins, marrows, courgettes and suchlike. However, those do take up quite a bit of room.

Grow Free Herbs!

Does your little one know that he/she can grow new herb plants totally free of charge? This is done simply by ...]]> Healthy Eating for Toddlers & Preschoolers https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/healthy-eating-under-five/ Thu, 15 Jul 2021 07:15:26 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3764 Eating a healthy, balanced diet is incredibly important for under-fives as they're still growing & developing.Eating a healthy, balanced diet is important at any age. However, during their formative years when they're still growing, it's even more important for under-fives. Their young bodies and brains are still developing, so getting the right balance of food types, vitamins and nutrients is essential in order to maintain optimum health, cognitive function and even sufficient energy levels. (Regular exercise is also essential, of course – however, we'll cover that separately in a future post).

The Benefits of a Healthy Diet

The benefits of maintaining a healthy eating regime are far-reaching and important, especially for young children. At this age, it's important for them to get into good eating habits rather than bad ones. So, setting them on the right path at an early age is essential. As well as feeding their bodies and brains with everything they need to properly develop, some of the significant benefits of healthy eating include:
  • Improved cognitive function and attention, with all the leaning benefits that these will bring;
  • Sufficient energy levels to undertake all their daily tasks;
  • A greater chance of avoiding certain diseases in later life, potentially including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems and even cancer;
  • Maintaining more even moods;
  • Maintaining a more healthy body weight and, through so doing, avoiding potential obesity. Avoiding becoming obese also leaves them less prone to bullying;
  • A greater sense of self-image and self-esteem, leading to greater self-confidence;
  • Overall, improved mental and physical wellbeing.
That's a huge and important list of benefits. Advice from Public Health England also suggests that ]]>