Healthy Food Day

Recently Tanya from the Heart Foundation came to our school.  She taught us about what type of food keeps us healthy.  Today we ate salad sandwiches.  There was some egg and ham that gave us protein.  We had fruit smoothies.  All of the kids enjoyed the sandwiches!

Here's Diego enjoying a sandwich that he made.

Here  is Libby drinking her delicious fruit smoothie made by lovely Mrs. Smith .

Room 4 had beetroot, cheese, apples, carrots, ham, egg ,tomato and carrot to use as sandwich fillings.

A selection of healthy fillings.  Please note: all the children ate the grain bread and there were no complaints!

Thank you to Tanya (the lady from the Heart Foundation) for teaching us about good food and also to Mrs Smith, who prepared the food, and Pac'n Save for the $30 voucher to provide us with this food!

Thank you Kahu for writing this post and adding photos.

Thank you Pauline for sending along grapes and a pineapple.  The kids really enjoyed these!

Choir Performance and the Big slurp

Our choir sang beautifully in front of the whole school on Tuesday.  They have practised hard over the year and it paid off today.  Thank you to Mrs Jackson who has taken the choir.

Today was the day for the Big Slurp.  It is part of the Milk in Schools programme.  Here are some photos of the event.

As part of the Food for Thought Programme, room 4 children will enjoy a shared lunch on Friday.  We have received money through the programme to buy healthy food.  The children will enjoy fresh sandwiches and smoothies.

Food for Thought - Our Visit to the Supermarket

Today room 4 children, along with some parent and grandparent helpers, visited a supermarket in Hastings.  We were investigating the food labels on various foods.  These included foods from the breakfast cereal section, snacks, dairy, breads and drinks.  It was very educational.  A big thank you to our adult helpers.

In the dairy section.

Dylan carefully investigates the labels.

Here is Connor (aged 4 months) on his first school excursion with sister Alice and mum Cushla.
 The cereal section was very interesting!

Did we find any healthy snacks …?

Cereal experts!

Diego is getting the facts about cornflakes.

You are very on task girls!

More detective work …

Food for Thought Day 2

Tanya visited today for the second time to talk to room 4 about healthy food choices.  Today she focused on educating the class about the sugar content in drinks.  Then we were shown how much fat was in some of the food we eat - especially takeaways.

Everyone had a copy of the packaging of a cereal.  We were food label detectives today.

We analysed how much fat, sugar, fibre, sodium and energy each cereal contained.
We were also shocked to learn that Nutrigrain contains 30% sugar!  So much for being marketed for athletes!

Time to look at the sugar content in drinks.  The Lift lemonade had the highest sugar content.

Look at how much sugar is in each one of these bottles!
Our body doesn't need this sugar and it finds it hard to deal with it.

A Kiwi favourite - Fish & Chips.  How about having a large sugary drink to go with that!

We talked about how you could make this meal healthier by removing the batter from the fish and having a salad to go with it.  

We were encouraged to ask the fish & chip shop where we buy our fish & chips from, what they use to cook their food in.

KFC & Chips - A favourite takeaway for room 4 children!

There are healthier options for takeaway food.

Watch those McDonalds burgers - the "bread" bun used for the burgers contains a lot of sugar, that's why it is so sweet.  If it had any more sugar in it, it would be a cake!  This means it has little fibre so it isn't filling.

The Heart Foundation's Food for Thought Programme

Today Tanya came into our class to teach us about healthy food choices.  Tanya works for the Heart Foundation.  She talked about food that makes our heart happy or sad.  We talked about the importance of a healthy diet, getting exercise and enough sleep.

Of course it is ok to have treats - but only occasionally.  

Ideally this means not everyday!

Tanya talks about happy and sad hearts, and how we make choices about what we eat and do that affects
our healh (especially our heart).

We use the food pyramid to learn more about which foods we should eat the most of, sometimes and the least of.

We had some children from room 7 in our class today.  Thanks Megan for helping Issac complete his food pyramid.

Technology - Bridge Construction

We have been learning about bridges for technology.  First we researched different types of bridges and what materials were used to construct them.  Then it was our turn to construct a bridge that would be strong enough to hold toy cars.  

We learnt that China has 6 out of the top 10 longest bridges in the world.  This has been a recent development over the last 2 decades.

We used straws, art sticks, polystyrene balls, pipe cleaners, paper and sellotape.  Some students brought their own supplies such as bits of wood, nails and a hammer.

Before we began our construction, we had to attach 2 straws together and they had to be able to support a toy car without breaking.

We worked together and tried to solve the challenge.

The pipe cleaners were an essential material to strengthen the join between the 2 straws.

Construction underway …

Budding engineers.

Team work in action …

Alice discovered that if she used straws between the art sticks, her bridge could be flexible.
This is great thinking Alice.

Ruby is concentrating hard.

Megan's design is really taking the shape of a bridge.

Flynn's bridge has a creative aspect.

Watch your fingers Dylan!

This bridge can successfully hold 2 cars (at least).

Jacob adds some finishing touches.

Proud bridge (structural) engineers!

Busy and totally focused.

This bridge is holding 7 cars!  Well done.  This bridge took lots of teamwork to make.