Rainbow Snacks
Deb McMillan Grade 1/2 TeacherChief Justice Milvain Elementary
The Rainbow Snack Program was started a few years ago, at Chief Justice Milvain Elementary, to encourage healthy eating. Sylvia Adams and Gloria Nalder started the program with their grade two and three students. Here's what is happening in my grade one and two class this year.
Every day during story time, the students eat any fresh fruit or vegetable and for each fruit or vegetable, I hand out a paper square matching the colour of the snack. The students glue the coloured paper to the rainbow snack bulletin board.
The task seemed daunting at first - for them and for me. The students wondered how a tiny square would make a rainbow on a very stark bulletin board. As for me, the teacher, I wondered how the incentive of a tiny square paper would compete with the sugary and salty, chocolate and candy-coated treats the students were so accustomed to? Clearly, we both underestimated ourselves. The board began filling up so fast! The children soon became very selective of the colour of snack they brought. Blue was their ultimate nemesis. When the first blueberries showed up, there was cheering!
The students got even more excited when we talked about all the additives in packaged food. We learned about the various vitamins and other benefits that different coloured fruits and vegetables contain. We continue to have this incredible, unspoken pact to make healthy choices. For example, last week it was a student's seventh birthday. In the past, an occasion of such magnitude would call for cake. He brought watermelon!
Little coloured paper squares, about an inch big, have grown into a beautiful rainbow in our classroom, but it pales in comparison to the sight of young children committed to a better way of eating.
