Tinkers Top Tips for staying healthy!
The British Heart Foundation recommends that children participate in at least three hours of physical activity every day in order to maintain fitness levels and a healthy weight. We have been working with the local authority to find ways to help children with their physical development.
Click the links for ideas and activities for a
"Boing, Whoosh, Roly poly" weekend!
What's new at Little Tinkers?
The importance of healthy eating in Early Years
A balanced diet is important for everyone, but healthy eating in Early Years is particularly vital. Child obesity is on the rise in Britain; recent figures suggest that over a fifth of 4- to 5-year-olds are overweight or obese, so healthy eating needs to be a major priority to protect the health of our youngest generations. Sticking to a healthy diet can be tough so we look at how to make healthy eating an easy, essential part of life as part of the children's activities.
Why healthy eating in Early Years is so important
The food that your child eats during their early years will lay foundations for their eating patterns and habits later in life. The nutritional requirements for children are different to adults – children need lots of energy, protein, vitamins and minerals to help them develop and grow. These are some of the main benefits of healthy eating for children:
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It helps children to grow and develop to the best of their ability
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It builds core strength and helps children fight illness and infection
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It improves concentration and helps children to learn
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It keeps children physically active and able to play and explore
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It establishes healthy eating habits for the rest of their lives
At Little Tinkers, we want to work with parents to support healthy eating in early years. As a parent you can rest assured that your child will be given quality, nutritious and healthy food to support their development and growth, a lot of which is cooked by the children themselves.
With this in mind, we have applied for a grant that will enable us to rebuild and improve our kitchen facilities and grow fresh fruit and vegetables. In fact, they will be grown by the children!
There are so many opportunities for learning, development and discussion surrounding growing food that we know the children will benefit hugely from our new project. We already have some raised beds for growing vegetables but we hope to build more as the project develops. The children will not only understand the 'farm to fork' idea, they will be involved in the planting, caring and harvesting process.
Farm to fork
Information sharing
Children sometimes attend more than one nursery and when this is the case, it is important that both settings share information. It is good practise for a number of reasons- to support your child in his or her learning; to share targets so that both settings can work together in the best interest of your child; or for health reasons. It would be useful therefore, to share contact numbers for the settings to allow key workers to have a chat and make sure they are working together for your child.