a healthy injustice

My school got this grant for a fruits and vegetables program. It means that every day, at about 2 o'clock, the lunch ladies visit each classroom and drop off a baggie of cut fruits or veggies for every child as a snack. This happens in each room: pre-k to fifth grade. They are not allowed to bring the food home, they must eat it at school.


Oh. Were you concerned that this was maybe disruptive to our teaching? Yes. Yes it is.

However, I have the unique opportunity to capitalize upon this interruption as an excuse for a vocabulary lesson (my general education colleagues aren't this lucky). My students with hearing loss typically have language delays. So we talk about "peeling" and "slices" and "fruit" and "seed" and "sticky".

So for now, it's not too much of a problem - unless you think it's more important to develop good writing skills.

Sigh.

7 comments:

Jenny said...

I wonder if that's the same grant we've got. We actually only get the food once a week (our school has nearly 1,000 kids). My class gets it every Tuesday and I almost always send it home. Yesterday we got pears which were quite easy to send home. Last week it was carrots and cucumbers with dressing - we ate those at school.

I can't imagine dealing with it everyday! Good luck.

Shell said...

Wow, that would be kind of a pain. It's a shame they can't just add it onto their lunches!

Ellen Marie "Mama" Pike said...

So do you have problems with children not liking the veggies? Most of my young grandchildren aren't real excited about raw veggies.

It is nice they are trying to encourage healthy eating. I agree with Shell that it would be great if they could add it to their lunches.

Good luck!

Bethany said...

Something new for our kids this year is the snack option. The kids are encouraged to bring a healthy snack from home, and they are allowed to eat it at any time during the morning. I thought it was kind of odd, and would be distracting, but it seems like the teachers have set up good rules for it. The kids are only allowed to bring healthy things. Unhealthy goes back in their backpack. If the snack becomes a toy instead of a tool for learning, (hungry = can't learn), then they lose the privilege for a while. And basically everyone is used to it now, so nobody seems to notice when someone is eating. Strange, but it seems to be working. Now, if the snack was being delivered by a parade of hair nets, that would be a different story.

Sarah Garb said...

It's so true that those little things that have a valid purpose, and seem pretty unobtrusive, can just turn into all kinds of logistics and time to deal with!

JoAnna said...

OMG I am so going to print that and keep it on my wall and see how long it takes for someone to notice. That is priceless!!

Mariposita Obsidiana said...

I worked at a school where they had a similar program once a week. More than 80% of the students were on reduced or free lunch, so I thought this was an excellent (and healthy) way to introduce new foods (we had starfruit one time! NOMS!) to children who might never otherwise experience it. It was also a way to provide one more small meal before the children went home for the weekend, in case they didn't get anything for dinner that night.

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