The Fun Food Company runs nutritional shows to KS3 students during PHSE sessions (or just for fun learning), in the form of a 2 part show (1 hour long). The sessions explore the importance of a healthy breakfast and how to balance the eat well plate, as well as recognising which foods contain carbs, protein, vitamins and minerals etc. The second half of the show is a competition loosely based on the television programme ‘Ready Steady Cook’, where 2 celebrity chefs (teachers) and their 2 team mates (pupils) battle for 15 minutes to cook a balanced meal, red team (red chillies) verses the green team (green peas).

Each team has a fully functional stage kitchen with 2 electric woks, a steamer, chopping boards, knife sets and cooking utensils. Once the competition has ended, the teams present the finished food onto the centre presentation table, where 10 audience volunteers come and taste the food and give their opinion. The winner is then voted for by the audience (50 – 300 pupils).

The show sounds like a great way for pupils to learn about healthy eating and the importance of it, whilst having a fun and interactive hour. You can find contact details for The Fun Food Company on their site.

GrainChain.com is a place where children can find out how grains are grown and harvested, discover what happens to them before they reach your plate, and learn why they’re so good for you! You can investigate healthy eating and meal planning, or go behind the scenes of the flour, grain and baking industry. Find out more in this video:

It looks like a really useful site for those currently learning about Harvest. It could also be used as part of Science and PSHE lessons. Visit www.grainchain.com to explore the site yourself. Don’t forget to look at our latest ‘Harvest on the Farm‘ teaching ideas and resources too.

The BBC is running a Thrillseeker campaign throughout 2010, which was established with the aim to encourage children to be active and experience new things outdoors. Kingswood Educational Activity Centres have been working with the BBC on the campaign and have created resources for teachers to use. The worksheets (embedded below) are designed to get children thinking about how being active can affect their lives, educate them on exercise and healthy diets and, crucially, help get them outside and enjoy being active. The worksheets also include helpful suggestions on discussion topics, an educational exercise based quiz and also mini projects to task children with.

You can also find more activities on the BBC’s ThrillSeeker site:

www.bbc.co.uk/thrillseeker

Following on from yesterday’s post about The Little Book of Goodness, here’s another resource linked to food and healthy eating…

National School Meals Week is the biggest national healthy eating awareness week about school meals in Britain. It takes place from 9th to 13th November 2009 with the support of the School Food Trust and ASSIST FM. It encourages everyone to “Get Involved” in promoting healthy school dinners in Primary and Secondary Schools.

The NSMW site offers lots of ideas, resources and activities for schools to use during the week, and throughout the rest of the year too!

The School Food Trust was set up in 2005. Its remit is to transform school food and food skills, promote the education and health of children and young people and improve the quality of food in schools.

They have recently produced a ‘Little Book of Goodness’ to help teachers and schools promote healthy eating to families and highlight to parents the huge changes which have been made to school food. Over 17,000 copies have been sent to schools in England, but you can also read it online below:

The Potato Story site is a great place to learn about life cycles, healthy eating, growing food and much more. The site has videos, games and quizzes for children to use, as well as resources for teachers and parents.

The site allows for cross-curricular links through ICT (Exploring simulations), literacy (with VAK opportunities including drama) and numeracy (measuring, collecting and presenting data).

There is also a ‘Potato Story’ bus which is available to visit schools to help them learn even more. If you would like to invite the bus to visit your school, enter your details on this form.

The aim of the Change4Life project is to get everyone moving more, in order to keep people healthy and to reduce the risk of obesity. Their site contains many useful resources for teachers and parents.

There are links to lots of useful sites (great for ‘healthy living’ topics) and suggested activities for keeping fit and healthy. You can also type in a UK postcode to see sporting activities and events taking place in the local area.