Creating Calm Classroom Mealtimes
How to implement trauma-informed care when returning to school after isolation Trauma can have a long lasting physical and mental impact. Adverse experiences and events affect children in multiple ways. Prior to entering isolation, Australia endured some of the most catastrophic bushfires we’ve ever seen. While we do consider ourselves the lucky country, we’re not […]
Cultivating food freedom during self isolation
During the COVID19 period you’ve been thrown the biggest curve ball of your career and work life has moved from school to your home with little time to prepare. The transition was sudden and unprecedented, thrusting you into the unknown. This unknown has heightened our awareness of how we ‘live’ health, especially how we manage […]
The Very Hangry Teacher
There once was a teacher who was very hungry. She (or He) ate one almond, two slithers of cauliflower bread, three celery sticks, four kale leaves and five cherry tomatoes to fill the void, but soon enough discovered they were very HANGRY! So… she (or he) devoured one piece of cheesecake, one pickled onion, one […]
That Sugar Activity
Confession: I’m a teacher, nutritionist and feeding therapist. I refuse to place a bunch of soft drink bottles on a table along with sugar cubes and ask children to guess how much sugar is in each drink. Nor do I use the same concept with chocolate bars, lollies, cereals, condiments and fruit. Why I hear […]
The Australian Health Curriculum – Is it helping or harming our children?
“When you eat junk food, you get fat!” and “Is this food healthy?” When working with children, there’s nothing off limits and thoughts are heard out loud. Children think it and say it. These are the kinds of comments and questions I’ve had from primary students in the last twelve months. This seems to be […]
Boosting Children’s Brain Fitness
The human brain is a fascinating organ that we continue to learn more about. The fitness of the brain is also known as cognitive fitness. Cognitive fitness is the “state of optimized ability to reason, remember, learn, plan, and adapt.”[1] Maintaining brain health and fitness relies on a number of factors; optimal nutrition, regular physical […]
Who is the gatekeeper of your child’s lunch box?
Prepping school lunch boxes can be the bane of one’s existence. In Australia there’s about 200 teaching days so that means 200 school lunches, and that’s only if you have one child! As a teacher I get to see many variations of lunch box contents everyday and I’m well aware of the judgement placed on […]