Health, Safety, and Nutrition

Through this course I have learned about how importance health, safety and nutrition is for
children. I have worked with my children on practicing good hygiene for themselves. I have
done discussions about the benefits of various healthy foods and have practiced proper cleaning
and disinfecting in the classroom to prevent cross contamination of food allergens and infectious
diseases. Knowledge of developmental aspects and issues help to promote and prevent risk for
children. Teachers need to establish and maintain a healthy environment for children by using
health promotion, safety protection, and nutrition education.
Strategies to support health, safety, and nutrition in the classroom:
Provide opportunities for children to engage in daily physical activities.

Incorporate physical activities in songs or during story time and other daily lesson plans.

Promote hand washing to prevent the spread of illness and infection.

 Supplemental activity: Have children color and cut apart the 6 steps for hand washing. Then,
see if they can put the steps back together in the correct order. Once children have reassembled
the steps properly, staple the steps together into a mini-booklet for the children.

Perform daily health checks and document in childs health record.

Illness policy:

Nutrition
Its important that children in the center are offered nutritious meals and have positive mealtime
experiences and good food habits. Staff should encourage healthy eating patterns and positive
attitudes to food and also supervise childrens eating. On the negative side you can have that one
child who refuses to eat anything and its been over 3 hours. What are you to do? You cant force
a child to eat. When they dont eat, you can see the effect it has on the child emotionally and
physically. Its hard to see a child hungry, especially when they come in an actually tell you that
they are hungry or sometimes shock you by telling you what they ate. Which are not healthy
foods for them. Food is provided by center based on the amount of time children are present. The
food should be served at flexible intervals. A child cannot go without food for more than 3 hours.
The meal or snack needs to meet U.S. Department of Agriculture Child Food Program minimum
meal requirements. Enough food should be made for each meal, so that children can have
seconds of vegetables or fruits, bread and milk. Menus should be posted for parents to see. If a
child cant have certain foods based on their medical condition, they need to have written
instructions from their physician. All staff and cooks should be informed about food allergies.
Staff should be sitting at table with children during meal time and meals should be served with
time allowed for socialization.
Strategies to support nutritional choices and possible food allergies:
Children should be offered water throughout the day and low-fat milk.
Class discussion about the benefits of various healthy foods.
Practice proper cleaning and disinfecting of utensils and food handling to prevent cross
contamination and illness.
 Menu
Week: June 19-23, 2017

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Cereal/Milk Toast w/Butter& Jelly Cereal/Milk Ham Cheese Burrito Cereal/Milk

Cinnamon Pears Fruit Cocktail Applesauce Tropical Fruit Mandarin Oranges

Breakfast

Ham & Cheese Meatballs-CN Cheese Burger-HM Chicken Nuggets Hot Dogs-HM

Sandwich-HM Buttered Noodles Fries BBQ Sauce-CN Tater Tots

Lunch Cooked Carrots Spinach Mixed Fruit Green Beans Pineapple

Apple Slice Mandarin Oranges Peaches

Banana & Yogurt Carrots & Dip Graham Cracker Cinnamon Rolls Bread Stick

Water W/ Ritz Crackers Milk Mixed Fruit W/ Tomato Sauce

Snack Water Water Milk

*CN=Child Nutrition *HM=Home Made *Juice is always 100%

Juice
 Menu
Week: June 26-30, 2017

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Cereal/Milk English Muffins Cereal/Milk Cinnamon Toast Cereal/Milk

Applesauce w/ Butter Tropical Fruit Apple Pineapples

Breakfast Banana

Beef Nachos-HM Chicken Noodle- Sloppy Joe-HM Grilled Cheese-HM Turley Sandwich-HM

Corn Casserole-HM Carrots Tomato Soup Green Beans

Lunch Tropical Fruit Mixed Veggie Mixed Fruit Mandarin Oranges Pears

Peaches

Graham Crackers Blueberry Muffin Cheese Roll Ups French Toast Stick Trail Mix

Milk Milk Milk Watermelon-seedless Juice

Snack Water

*CN=Child Nutrition *HM=Home Made *Juice is always 100%

Juice
 Lesson plans

THEME: Food and Nutrition

Week: June 26-30, 2017

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Circle Time >Discussion about >What >Discuss dairy and >All about grains >Review basic food
(Song/, fruits/vegetables protein
Games/Calend healthy eating do you like to eat? Ice cream-song >Review number 6 Groups ( Dairy, bread
ar ,
Colors/Letters/ >Review letter C Hi Ho Cherry-O game Peanut Butter Jelly- On Top of Spaghetti- Meat, and
Numbers) song song vegetables)
>Review number 5 Growing song

Good food collage Fruit and vegetable Paper pizza Painting Noodles Food group plates
Art craft

Music/ Exercise moves If Youre Happy and Catching play balls Head, Shoulders, Yoga
Movement Knees
You Know it- And Toes-movement
movement
song song

Small Stringing noodles Fruit and vegetable Lacing food cards Counting beans Tracing letter C
Groups
sorters
Goals: Introduce the 5 food groups and understand that eating different foods from each food group will help them grow, think and have
energy to play.

Weekly focus
Fine Motor- stringing noodles Social Emotional- Discussion about healthy eating Cognitive Development-
counting beans
Large Motor- catching play balls Language and Literacy- If Youre Happy and You know it Approaches to Learning- look at
food groups
 Safety
Safety in the early childhood classroom includes the indoor and outdoor physical
environment. (Size, condition, furniture, and equipment)
From the layout of room and placement of desk, activity stations, to the
materials used in craft making. Safety should be the forefront in your
classroom at all times.
Activities, movements, and lessons should always be planned taking safety
into consideration to avoid injury, illness or other harm to the children in
your care.

My classroom environment check list:

Overall Environment
1. In general, is the classroom hospital? In general, the classroom was orderly and
attractive and well-lit and the walls had a neutral soft color and the windows had
characterized curtains with dinosaurs on them. This environment was warm and
inviting.
2. What is on the walls? The walls where decorated with art prints, photographs and
childrens work and most of the pictures and displays where at child eye level. The art
work done by the children had much individual expressions. It didnt all look the
same. Some had a lot of detail and some had very little. Also there was a few pictures
representing a multicultural community. The art I saw on a section of the wall was
Native American crafts with a description about how and why the child made the
craft. The teacher also had taken pictures of the children making the craft and
displayed it on the wall by it.
3. Is there evidence of families in the environment? There was a family bulletin board
with each childs family pictures of them added to the classroom. Also a parent
bulletin board with important information.

Dramatic Play
1. Is there a wide variety of clothes, including garments from various cultural groups?
There was many clothes for career, home, and fantasy play but very few representing
cultures.
2. Are the pictures and the props representative of a diversity of cultures? There werent
many pictures and props representing a diversity of culture but there was clothes and
accessories for male gender role play as well as female gender role play.
 3. Are the dolls representative of a broad variety of racial groups? There was more dolls
of color and only one white doll.

Blocks

1. Are the accessories representative of various cultural groups and family

configurations? This block area had a few posters of different multicultural
community workers and photographs of buildings that represent various cultural and
family configurative
2. Are the people block accessories stereotypic in terms of sex roles? A big dollhouse
was added to the block center and there was a mixture of little people toys of girl and
boys also on the block shelves in this area and farm animals, so both genders could
play. With these different accessories it balanced it out, for both genders.

Language Arts

1. Does the classroom have a wide variety of age- appropriate and culturally diverse
books and language arts materials? This area had a variety of child authored
books, such as fantasy, mood and concept books for appropriate age, but lack
multiethnic character books. This area had number cards, dry eraser boards,
magnetic letters, photo cards, alphabet cards and pocket charts.
2. Are there stories about a variety of people from each of the following groups in
the book area?

No Native-American culture Yes White ethnic culture

No Asian- American cultures No Spanish- speaking cultures
Yes Black culture No Biracial or multiracial people
No Family configurations, including biracial and multiracial families and gay and lesbian families

3. Are there any books that speak of people of diverse cultures in stereotypical or derogatory terms?
No

The overall environment of the classroom was arranged by separate learning centers and all the
areas was useful to the children there and the furniture was child size and comfortable. The room
had low, open shelves for each center. Also this classroom has made somewhat of a progress by
adding discussions during their circle time about different cultures and talking about their history.
Also making crafts to represent their discussion. The teacher in this classroom could add more
multicultural books and also big books and maybe a listening center with book-tape sets for
further progress.

The dramatic play area was arranged big enough for at least four children to play in and had child
size furniture in it and a few pictures of multiracial families on the wall. This area made a progress
by adding clothes for both genders for role play. The teacher could add more props, recycled
containers of boxes food for play and play phones, so that children can role play while
communicating with each other.

The block area had a great selection of three blocks to pick from and was low napped carpeted for
children to build their blocks on. This center also had enough people, vehicles, signs for children
to play with. The teacher could add some tape measures, rulers, and some community books of
people of many ethnicities to further their progress.

The language art area had more materials to look at and use but lacked multicultural books for
children to look at. The teacher could add some new books to the area and female and male in
various roles of books and maybe a computer or tablet for children to use at certain times, which
are limited.