A bowl of beans sat in the center of a round child-size table. Bright green peas punctuated the dark red of the kidney beans and the speckled pinto beans. Taupe chickpeas were innumerable and black beans darkened the pot.
“Do you have a favorite bean?” Preschool teacher Caryn Steese asked the group of three-to-four-year-olds.
Elizabeth Bowker tentatively picked up a garbanzo bean and held it up high in the air.
“Beans are good for your tummy,” Steese explained to the attentive kids, holding up Bowker’s chosen bean. “They help you grow big and strong and they’re good for your brain!”
The kids continued to pick through the bowls of beans, attempting to sort them into piles based on color and shape, asking questions and running their hands through the large bowl of beans as they piece together the lesson.
Like most days, the children are learning, but they don’t even realize it. Thursday’s lesson at the Pacific Center was all about mindful touching and teaching the kids about the importance of nutrition. The school, an extension of the South Bay Adult School, is part of a Beach Cities Health District pilot program called LiveWell tots, an extension of the LiveWell kids programs sprouting up all over elementary schools in the South Bay. The initial program at the elementary schools taught elementary-aged kids the same principles; good nutrition, the importance of exercise, where fruits and vegetables come from and even incorporated parent educational programs into the curriculum. The new LiveWell tots program, which launched in January, focuses on teaching kids and parents the same principles — but even earlier. Although the Pacific Center already focused on healthy foods and nutritional guidelines, the new LiveWell tots program gave them a research-based curriculum to better help them guide the teachers and parents through the children’s early education.
“Why not reach children a little earlier,” said Judy Spragg, the South Bay Adult School Parent Education Coordinator at the Pacific Center, an extension of the South Bay Adult School. “They teach them how to make the right choices, starting with food, and evolves into everyday life.”
The Pacific Center’s LiveWell tots program caters to 222 kids, ages three to five. The Center accommodates kids from all over the South Bay and incorporates teaching the parents as well.
Not only does the curriculum focus on mindful choices, it also teaches the kids breathing exercises as a coping mechanism, which for the teachers has the biggest change as well as a successful tool in the classroom.
“It stimulates the brain in the right way,” said Spragg. “Teachers have told me they use it throughout the day when the kids start getting a little antsy.”
Parent Lori Bowker has used the breathing technique at home as well as in the classroom.
“We’ve always done deep breathing,” said Bowker. “But doing it in the classroom reinforces the importance of it for the kids.”
For Bowker, the nutrition focus has helped her spotlight healthy eating at home a lot more than she used to.
“It’s a good reminder,” said Bowker. “We all know nutrition is important, but this helps us incorporate that knowledge on a daily basis.”
Part of the lesson is not just about nutrition, but being aware about where the food comes from and how it is grown.
“It teaches respect for the food, for those who help to prepare it and acknowledging all the work that goes into bringing the food from farm to table,” Roxanne Luce, the LiveWell tots program coordinator said.
Bowker noticed the lesson plans were effective when she went to the farmers market with her daughter and noticed that she was more verbal about understanding that the farmers grew the vegetables instead of just thinking vegetables come from the supermarket.
“They’ll absorb all the information you give them,” said Steese. “You just have to do it at their development level.”
Some of the four lesson plans they have previously done have focused on memory and smell. A lesson used vegetables as a memory exercise by putting a group of different foods on the table and taking one away, allowing the kids to deduce which one was missing. Another included tasting different fruits.
“It’s all about setting a good example, like taking a bite of the fruit with them,” Steese said.
Another time a child walked into the classroom with a rock, claiming that it was dinosaur poop. Instead of discouraging the child about her find, the teacher got into a discussion with the kids about the difference between carnivore and herbivore poop, and what types of food are easier to digest– and eventually poop out. According to Spragg, the parents thought it was a funny conversation, but the kids were serious about listening and learning about how the poop was made.
“The kids really don’t know I’m doing the lesson plans,” said Steese. “It’s just fun for them”
The program also focuses on understanding the world around them and being grateful and resp
ectful. Spragg hopes to incorporate those principles at home as family values as well as in the classroom.
“A valuable part of live is making the right choices,” said Spragg. “Hopefully, when to make choices down the road. They’ll know how to make the right ones.” ER
