Superior – The bite of winter is giving way to the warmer days of spring, and the students of Superior Head Start are working on a theme to celebrate the change of seasons. The classroom is beginning to look as much like spring as the outdoors, with the projects being made by the children decorating the room.
Having planted vegetable seeds, they are giving them the things they need to make them grow, while discovering very interesting things about how plants grow and what they are used for.
As part of the spring theme there was a visit on Wed, Mar. 6 from the Superior High School “Panthers” FCCLA group sponsored by Mrs. Villarverde. The FCCLA students provided a Literacy, Eating and Nutrition activity presentation by introducing each activity and providing paper plates, food group cutouts, and glue sticks to create a place setting of color coded food groups to emphasize the importance of eating healthy foods. Assisted by the Superior students, the Head Start children matched the food groups to the corresponding food group color.
The FCCLA students also provided a food tasting activity, titled “Ants on a Log” which is one of the many favorite Head Start Chef Combo food tasting activities. The children served themselves family style and commented on the taste, texture, color, and size of snack. At the end of each activity, they reviewed what they learned about “Food groups”.
The FCCLA students used developmentally appropriate poster board replicas of the various food groups (apple, carrot, lollipop, milk, bread) to introduce each food group. Each student spoke briefly about each food group and asked the children open ended questions.
One Head Start student commented on distinguishing between the poster board cut outs of each of the food groups: “I don’t like the apple ‘cause it doesn’t have arms!”
The children were presented with color coded food group wrist bands upon completion of an activity. The Head Start children enjoyed preparing and tasting the snack and fruit juice and, especially, interacting with the FCCLA students, Mrs. Villarverde and Ms. Josie. The children expressed their thanks and concluded the morning activity by singing an “I Love You Ritual” and singing “Where is Thumbkin?”.
The Head Start Program is family orientated and community based working passionately to elevate the quality of life for children and families.