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from a Reflection Writing Retreat at Shelburne Farms
Where Food Comes From: The FEED Program at Edmunds Elementary School by Nicole Arsenault  If you walked into my Kindergarten class at the beginning of the year during snack time, you would find that the most popular snacks were cupcakes and cookies. Kathleen’s face would be frowning as she tried a piece of Kiwi, and heads would be shaking “no” about tasting spinach leaves. Now, a few months later, you hear dilly beans crunching between Dylan’s teeth and children asking for seconds on homemade vegetable soup from vegetables harvested at the Intervale and pumpkin pie made from a handpicked pumpkin straight from the vine. This fall we were sprouting with knowledge about healthy food choices and nutrition. The program is called FEED (Food Education Every Day), a collaborative effort of Shelburne Farms, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont and Food Works, a nonprofit food education agency in Montpelier. Through a week’s summer training session, I developed lesson plans linking food, farms and the community to help children understand the connection between Vermont’s farms and their lives. Along with six other teachers, I took field trips to the local Intervale to establish connections with local farmers, visited the Ethan Allen Homestead to learn about the history of Burlington, and experienced many other hands-on learning experiences to bring back to our classrooms.  I did not know at first how I was going to fit this into my intense full day kindergarten curriculum. I did not want to create another “add-on” to an already overwhelming teaching day. With literacy in full force, letters and numbers to be learned, and children adjusting to school, how would I ever be able to reach the goal of the program, which is to educate children on the importance of healthy eating and the process by which food is grown and harvested? (Photo at left: Nicole and colleagues during a hands-on professional development session)It all began the third week of kindergarten as we sang the Food Pyramid Rap song. Jonathan asked, “Is the food pyramid like a piñata? When you open it candy falls out?” That is when our journey began and I knew I had a lot of teaching and hands-on learning to do. I began my ten-week unit by making magic bread with my students. I wanted them to learn about the importance of wheat in our diet and how it is processed into bread. We always begin activities with literature to capture their attention and for this activity we read The Little Red Hen. The children were investigating wheat stalks, rolling them in their hands and collecting the berries. Then the fun part came when Harry began  grinding the berries and discovered white powder coming out of the grinder. Touching, feeling and tasting the flour was adventurous; making the connection to bread caused the light bulbs to come on. Many children at this age believe that everything comes from the grocery store. It is important for children to make the connection that food comes from the farm, then goes to the store, then we buy it, prepare it, and finally put it on their plates. Digging potatoes, stomping on bean pods, and listening to a farmer read the story Pumpkin, Pumpkin were highlights of our trip to the Intervale. My children experienced firsthand what it is like to harvest vegetables. We then brought the vegetables back to our classroom to cook with. We made healthy French fries by baking the potatoes in the oven, and used many of the other vegetables to make vegetable soup. These activities help my students to visualize and learn where our food comes from. We went to the apple orchard and when we returned we sorted our apples by color, graphed the apples and ate them. We wrote about our trip and made applesauce for a snack. Another focus of my unit was to educate my students on healthy choices. We would examine the lunch menu daily and analyze which  food groups are served in the cafeteria. We made food pyramids on the back of our snack time place mats. Each day during snack time the children would sort their food before eating it. This gave them the opportunity to see what group they were eating from and how much they should be eating. One great component of the FEED program was having hands-on assistance in my classroom once a week to help with the activities we were doing. FEED also provided us with many useful resources and contacts. For instance, in order to grind the wheat berries we needed a grinder. Shelburne Farms let us use their grinder. We also needed funding to buy the ingredients to cook in our classroom, for which they gave us a small stipend. They were always on hand to consult with and provide ideas to make our lessons hands-on and keep my students engaged. To end my unit, we had a celebration where the students had to teach their parents about what they had been learning over the ten-week period. The parents had to sort food in the food pyramid, grind wheat berries, make  butter, sequence cards in order from wheat stalk to bread, and plant seeds for our grow lab. The children felt very successful as they educated their parents and led them on a scavenger hunt to find the Vermont standards around the classroom. This has carried on into their homes as well. I have had many parents commenting on how their children are deciding what they want to eat and making their own healthy food choices. The children are eating a more colorful plate, which means a healthier one. They are also more willing to try foods that are different.I feel that obesity is a growing concern among children today and as an educator it is my duty to make learning about food education a permanent strand of the school curriculum. By incorporating the FEED program we are also building a sense of community in our children, who are tomorrow’s leaders. Suggested Children’s Literature Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington The Little Red Hen by Philemon Sturges |
