Food & Drink Archives | Little Acorns Nursery School https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/category/nutrition/food-drink/ Tue, 15 Nov 2022 14:21:32 +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 ...]]> 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 ]]>