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- Nutrition:
Serving Meals
Providing nutritious
food and promoting good eating habits are important parts of any child
care program. Meal times offer children the opportunity to socialize,
try new food, and build on many learning skills. Incorporating ideas and
themes from your curriculum into meal times is a great way to involve
children, and makes for a fun time all around. Here are some things to
think about when serving meals and snacks:
- Always have children wash hands
before and after snacks and meals.
- Observe safe food preparation and
handling practices.
- Include items from the four major
food groups: vegetables and fruits, cereals and breads, milk products
and milk equivalents, and meat and meat substitutes.
- Allow enough time for snacks and
meals so that children don’t feel rushed.
- Serve snacks and meals at regularly
scheduled times.
- Serve a variety of textures, colors,
and temperatures of food.
- Have the children take part in
food preparation, which builds skills in many areas such as math, science,
language, and social studies.
- Let children take part in serving
the food (e.g., passing around a basket of crackers, or carrying a tray
of fruit to a table).
- Serve food from a diversity of
cultures, especially those of children in the program.
- Serve small portions, particularly
if it’s a new or unfamiliar food.
- For infants, talk to parents about
daily feeding schedules, formula or breast milk preparation, and when
and how to introduce solid food.
- Talk to parents about any allergies
or special diets their children may have. It’s helpful to keep
a list posted in the eating area
- To prevent choking, do not serve
popcorn, nuts, raisins, grapes, raw carrots, or hot dogs (unless cut
up into half-inch pieces) to children under the age of five.
- Do not use an excess of sugar or
salt when preparing any food.
- Post your snack and meal menus
on your program’s main bulletin board and website
