Does your child refuse to eat at mealtime or reject certain foods?
Director (SK)
Healthy Start was the kick start we needed to make changes in our centre.
Director (SK)
When you hear the word ‘healthy’, you automatically go right to food. Healthy Start shows you that it’s more than just food, it’s about being active too!
Director (SK)
Healthy Start should be part of the ECE training.
Director (SK)
Healthy Start is beneficial for everyone, not just ECE’s.
Director (SK)
Healthy Start is inspiring. It gives you the opportunity to look at your current program with a fresh set of eyes.
Director (SK)
Healthy Start is a hidden gem!
Save the date – Healthy Start/Départ Santé Symposium
The Réseau Santé en français de la Saskatchewan cordially invites you to attend: The 2017 Healthy Start / Départ Santé Symposium Connecting research to practice & policy January 18, 2016 When? Wednesday January 18th, 2017 from 10am to 4pm Where? Location TBA – Saskatoon, SK Why? The Healthy Start / Départ Santé early years health promotion project is coming to a close after four years of implementation – what have we learned and where do we go from here? Who? All partners, stakeholders and community members who are interested in hearing about what this project has accomplished over the past 4 years. Please forward or share in your networks. What? The story of Healthy Start / Départ Santé: the people, the engagement, the successes, and lessons learnt. Highlights of the day will include: An overview of key realisations An opportunity to delve further into the evaluation study with the research team Stakeholders sharing how HSDS impacted them or their organization Outlining specific strategies for the sustainability of Healthy Start / Départ Santé. Main objectives for the day: Share the story of Healthy Start / Départ Santé and how it has impacted participants, collaborators and partners alike. Disseminate research findings, review best practices and lessons learned. Look to the future: scaling up Healthy Start / Départ Santé. Yes, I am interested in attending! click here
Banana muffins
What you need: 1 cup of whole wheat flour 1 cup of quick-cooking oatmeal ½ cup of packed brown sugar 2 tsp. of baking powder 1 egg ½ cup of skim or 1% milk 1 cup of mashed banana ¼ cup of vegetable oil Non-stick cooking spray How to: Pre-heat oven to 400⁰F (200⁰C) Lightly spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray or use paper baking cups. In a large bowl, mix flour, oatmeal, sugar and baking powder. In another bowl, beat the egg and mix in the mashed banana, milk and vegetable oil. Stir the banana mixture into the dry ingredients and mix lightly. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until muffin tops are browned. Loosen muffins and serve warm. Makes 12 medium-sized muffins Reference: LEAP Food Flair, Legacies Now, p. 158.
October-November 2016
Check out this month’s Healthy Start Sampler for a feature on Regina Eastview Daycare, learn how to make banana muffins, and more!
How to Encourage Healthy Start in your Centre
Here are some tips to help make everyone a part of Healthy Start! 1. Give staff a weekly HOP activity to try. Choose an activity, photocopy it or put it in page protectors, and post it in the preschool area. Ask educators to try the activity a few times that week. Afterwards, ask them to rate the activity: How hard was it to set up? Did the children enjoy it? 2. Make recipe pages for parents to borrow. Put a recipe children like on a page, ask children to draw the dish. Then, laminate the page and create a lending library for parents. 3. Laminate and share the LEAP Parent Cards. Encourage parents to borrow the books suggested from the library! 4. Make homemade books. Use pictures of the children playing some HOP games and add them to your classroom library. Then, when children are reading the books, they remember how much fun they had being active! 5. Ask the children to plan a meal. Go through Food Flair and find some recipes to make up a snack or lunch. Then, ask the children to help prepare the food. See pp. 88-82 in Food Flair for ways children as young as two can help out with food prep! 6. Share the monthly Healthy Start newsletter. Forward our email to parents, print out copies and hand them out as children are picked up in the evening, or add a Healthy Start section to your centre’s newsletter and use one of our articles. 7. Make time for Healthy Start at staff meetings. Just 5 minutes at every staff meeting can help keep the idea of Healthy Start fresh in everyone’s minds. Contact the Healthy Start team for ideas about what to talk about during this time.
Healthy Start Community Trainer
Did you know that Healthy Start staff aren’t the only ones who lead training sessions? Since 2014, Healthy Start has trained roughly 30 people from across the province to be HSDS Community Trainers – we even have one trainer located in New Brunswick! Our Community Trainers work in a variety of roles such as daycare staff, teachers, dietitians and more, but they have been brought together with a common passion for encouraging healthy lifestyles. Their role as a Community Trainer is to work in coordination with our staff to deliver regular training sessions in both English and French to early years’ centres. It will be a busy autumn for our Community Trainers as many of them have already signed up for trainings in and around their home communities. Community Trainers are a key part of ensuring that the Healthy Start initiative will be carried into the future. Thanks to their dedication, Healthy Start will be able to reach many more children!