With Halloween coming up, candy is everywhere. Then comes Thanksgiving, with extra servings of potatoes, stuffing, and pie. After that is Christmas gingerbread houses, decorated cookies, and fancy cakes. How in the world do we find engaging ways to teach children about
nutrition, exercise, and being healthy?
Learning Resources has created an activity mat that reflects the current government guidelines for daily nutritional suggestions. The Healthy Helpings Activity Mat teaches children about the food groups - fruits, grains, vegetables, protein, and dairy.
This huge floor mat is a wonderful way for children to interact with foods and learn which foods fit into the different groups. The cards have photos of real foods that children eat and each card allows the child to self-check whether they correctly put the card in the right group, because each group is assigned a color, such as green for veggies, and on the back of each veggie card the word is in green.
The
activity mat is made from a heavy-duty vinyl, durable enough for many years of floor play. The cards are made from heavy, glossy cardstock. It's easy to fold up and store in its original box and I keep the cards in a small plastic zipper-top bag in the box too.
There are even exercise cards that encourage children to move their bodies. I bet lots of moms could use the nudge of an excited four year old who wants to exercise! My daycare kids get me moving on a regular basis, dancing, stretching, and doing
exercises.
The graphic of the plate on the activity mat even shows desirable proportion sizes of each food group, helping children learn they should eat more veggies than fruits, grains, dairy or proteins. This idea can be extended to meal times by asking if they remember the different food groups.
Using the Healthy Helpings activity mat is a great way to get children interested in foods they haven't tried before or even ones they've refused in the past. Allowing children to interact with
educational toys like these often motivate children to try new things. Maybe your child WILL eat brussels sprouts after all!
My preschoolers wanted to use the foods from our home center with the mat and cards too. They matched up food and cards, putting them into the correct section on the plate. Later, at the lunch table, their conversation quickly turned into a discussion about the foods on their plate and which group it fit into on the mat. We even ate our snack on the mat, so we could further apply our new knowledge and since it's vinyl it was easy to clean. You can purchase this amazing learning toy at
http://www.learningresources.com/ and enter to win it below!
Win Learning Resources' Healthy Helpings Activity Mat!
To enter, fill in the Rafflecopter form below. You must be at least 18 years old and live in the USA. This giveaway ends on 11/5/2012 at midnight ET. Only the first entry is mandatory; bonus entries increase your chance to win! Good luck!
