And where do animal crackers come from? "The cracker aisle!"

This week at Kickstart, we are learning about food, healthy eating, and where in the world our snack comes from.

Yesterday we read "Eating the Alphabet" and the kids were introduced to dozens of fruits and vegetables that they'd never heard of. At our math/science center, we held a "food lab": each child tasted three varieties of apples, described them in terms of taste and texture, and then added their name to a chart displaying the apple preferences of our whole class. In the art center, we made tissue paper collages of our favorite fruits and veggies.

In the afternoon, Andy and our new friend Sam Sikder visited to help us make energy balls. Two scoops of peanut butter + honey + flax seeds + coconut + raisins + chocolate chips = huge mess and happy kids.

Today our classroom was more full than ever! Thirteen kids total. One of our students who has been MIA finally showed up, and she's lovely!

This morning at circle time, we read "Pancakes for Breakfast" and "Pancakes, Pancakes" and discussed recipes, cooking, and the various processes of acquiring ingredients (threshing wheat was a hard concept to grasp). Later, we split into two reading groups (thanks Nikki for letting us camp out in the FRC's AC) to help us better command attention during books - it turned out to be a great idea. We've been reading more and more books, and the kids seem to love them! They can't wait to pick out and devour their own books during quiet time, and it's so nice to see them get excited about reading.

Now that we've begun to talk about food, I've become really aware of what we're feeding the kids. Yesterday, Julia and I removed the butter from their breakfast trays (because honestly they were eating sugary corn muffins with jelly and did they need butter? no) and today I brought in carrots and encouraged (okay, gently forced) them all to eat at least one carrot stick. It's so easy to give them Goldfish and animal crackers for snack, but I think that I am going to make a grocery store run this weekend and stock up on a variety of fruits and veggies. Our pickiest eater LOVES fruit (it's all she eats some days), so why not give her what she wants?

Tomorrow, we're going to work in the garden with NEAT intern Adin! Stay tuned!