Grains! Hip Hip Hurray for Grains!

On our first day of Food & Fitness we learned about grains and we happened to have visitors whose parents are grass seed farmers as well as wheat and other odds and ends.  So this was a lot of fun.  We talked about different grains and as soon as I said wheat Grant pipped up "we have wheat".  How do you get the wheat out I asked, do you cut it down and shake it to get the seeds out?  "Nope we combine it."  That boy has to be 100% accurate with his farm terminology.  Cutting it down and shaking it to get the wheat out was not close enough.  Gotta love him!

First we wrote our names on the provided name tags.  I only had 3 name tags so I gave one to the three oldest kids - Lachlan, Peter, and Grant.  

Then we played with the oats that Mother Goose Time provided.  We touched it, and ran our fingers through and built our vocabulary by describing what we felt.  Next MGT had us use the grains to make the first letter in our names.  G for Grant. 

In the above picture you can see Grant's sandwich.  Mother Goose Time gave us break cut outs and they were to make the rest of the sandwich ingredients out of paper.  It was a really fun project.  Grant decided to give his sandwich for his Dad, he wrote hit Dad's name on it on one side.  He knew how to spell it all on his own, Troy.  He also wrote his first and last name on the other.  It was so cool!

Cody is 3 and has always had amazing fine motor skills.  He was so thrilled to be cutting paper, it's obvious he has done it before.  As he cut each piece he would say "I think I know who this is for . . .  it's for you!" as he handed it off to the lucky recipient.  He had such joy on his face as he gave his precious gifts away. 

 Here is a glimpse at the pile I accumulated. 

 Adam also loves to cut and started following Cody's cues.  He handed each piece to me. 

 Here you go Mom!  They may have just been cutting paper but there was so much learning going on.  Of course I will point out the awesome fine motor practice but also kindness and being giving.  These are not small things.

 Lachlan decided to make a few more letters.  He made and S for our last name and a T.  "A T, hmm, who's the T for?  Is there anyone at the table whose name starts with a T?"  I specifically look at Grant who has called me T his whole life.  Melts my heart every time.

 "You" he says and then gives me this face.  What. A. Mug.

 I think this is Grant's G that got a bit smooshed together.  What a challenging thing to make letters out of and they all did perfectly. 

In the following days we learned about more of the food groups, vegetables, fruit, dairy and protein.  We had a fun experience after dairy day.  We were driving to Lachlan's class at DCS (his homeschool charter school) when we got behind a Pepperidge farm truck.  We stared mostly at the back which had a big picture of their cookies that I was drooling over.  Then the truck turned and we all spotted the giant Goldfish cracker on the side.  An argument broke out between the boys about whether the goldfish cracker was considered dairy or not.  Finally I hear "Mom, are goldfish dairy?!?!" I explained that they have both dairy and grains.

This conversation would have never come up if we had not spent the time to break down each food group into a day and really talk about it.  Thank you Mother Goose Time!  Really, the timing could not be more perfect as our 4 year old has decided to no longer eat anything except goldfish crackers and bread with butter and honey.  At least he won't eat anything else with out a big fight.  Learning about food and nutrition should help, just like learning about growing gardens helped my boys actually try tomatoes for the first time.  Lots of great life lessons packed into this amazing curriculum.