12: Health is Wealth
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
Many say that good health and well-being play a crucial role in a person’s happiness. The older we get, the more we realize this to be true — especially now at a time when our health is our primary shield to the virus that has affected the world in many ways than we can imagine.
Health and well-being come in different forms. While physical health is the one that usually comes to mind, other aspects of our well-being are also equally important. The recent autumn break provided an opportunity for the children to relax, unwind, spend time with their friends and families, and prioritize their well-being. This week, they were all eager to share the mini-adventures that they took over the holidays -- from their home to Kidzania -- through illustrations that they made that added color to our playground.
A new addition to our classroom is the shiny golden prize that we won in the Halloween door competition. Each child was excited to touch and play with the gold trophy when they first saw it. You can see their pride in the achievement that they have accomplished together.
It is a wonderful prize, indeed, but the students learned, as we continued our inquiry into health and well being this week, that there are more important treasures than gold. It is one that we already have: our body. And what better way to take care of it than by choosing the food we eat, well.
This week, the children revisited the food groups that they learned in class the past few months: vegetables, fruits, sweets, proteins, dairy, and carbohydrates/grains. We transformed one corner of our room into a Kinder Shop, where the students had the opportunity to be “store owners” for a day. They organized their store’s shelves by sorting the different food items for selling. While fixing the shelves, one of the children noted that it’s similar to grocery stores where food items are separated into different groups. It was a wonderful connection, as the children are slowly seeing the practical use of learning the different food groups.
As a class, we gathered to check if we organized our shelves correctly, and discovered that there were some food items that we couldn’t agree on which food group it belongs to — like tomatoes! “Is it a fruit or a vegetable,” they asked. “But my mommy puts it on a salad, it’s a vegetable,” one argued. According to our book of Questions and Answers about Food, fruits come from the flowering part of a plant and has seeds, while vegetables are from others parts of a plant. So technically, a tomato is a fruit but we enjoy eating it as a vegetable. (My random wondering: does this mean that tomato juice is considered a fruit juice?)
Tomatoes is not the only misconception about food that the children have. I discovered interesting confusions and wonderings when the children went through different food assessment stations:
“Pizza is not unhealthy, it’s yummy. It should be here,” one student mused as he moved the pizza to the healthy column.
“Are all yummy food healthy?” I asked.
“Yes,” one of them said.
“Even cakes, chocolates, and ice cream?” I said, “because they sure sound yummy to me.”
“No,” was the answer followed up by, “but ice cream is okay. It’s made from milk. Milk is healthy.” 😆
(They do have a point, which I might say to myself on the days
that I am craving for ice cream.)
A big part of eating healthy is understanding what it means to have a balanced diet. We revisited the word ‘balanced’ — which we already unlocked at the beginning of the school year — by playing with balancing scales. The children started placing objects on the scales one by one to see if they could balance out the weights. It took a lot of trial and error, but eventually, we were able to work as a team and figure out how to solve the challenge. The children were able to visualize how a small object can weigh so much if there is an imbalance or an abundance of items.
They even connected the concept of balance to one of our favorite class books, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. In the story, the coconut tree started tilting to one side because of the weight of all the letters, until all of them fell down. The tree could not handle it anymore. The children learned that balance is important, and too much of something is not always a good thing.
A balanced diet always begins with the choices that we make with the food we eat. To deepen the children’s understanding of food choices, I invited them to a buffet or a smorgasbord of food that I have prepared especially for them. I told the children that they can pick whatever they want in the spread that was laid out on the table.
We used them to create a self-portrait which we called, “I Am What I Eat.” It was fascinating to see how the children curated their balanced meal in their own image.
This week, the children also had a second field trip to Toho. After learning about healthy choices, the children used their newfound knowledge to shop for food that will give them proper nutrition. It was a not a test of will power anymore — unlike our first trip to the grocery together — as the children went straight to the fruits and vegetable section, and made their selections there. Their choices was an array of fresh produce, and I can’t wait to see what they will make with them over the weekend!
If what they say is true that our happiness is indicative of our general health and well-being, then I must say that we have struck gold this week, as it truly was a happy one.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
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Health and well-being are not only dependent on the food we eat, but also the lifestyle that we choose to have. This week, for PE, the children went out on the green field with Ms. Miho to exercise their muscles and breathe fresh air. It's the perfect way to foster an active lifestyle for the children!
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