Brecht opts for a different lunch on his birthday. His lunch box Red is therefore not allowed to go to school. Red is sad and a bit angry. Together with her friends Bell Pepper Yellow, Tomato Red, Pear Green, Carrot Orange, and Rolly Brown, Red comes into action.
Theme: healthy food
Sub-themes: lunch box, noon lunch, waste prevention, working together, choosing.
• The school organizes a theme week on healthy food / healthy lunch.
• The pre-schoolers are spontaneously interested and have a conversation about their lunch boxes and their contents.
• A pre-schooler has forgotten his lunch box.
• The school wants a healthy version of the Week of Taste (November 12-22).
• You are looking for an activity to participate in World Food Day (16 October).
- Nature: General skills: 1.1 The pre-schoolers can distinguish differences in sound, smell, colour, taste and feeling.
- Nature: Living and non-living nature: 1.4 The pre-schoolers can arrange organisms and common materials based on simple criteria they have found themselves.
- Nature: Health: 1.10 The pre-schoolers can in concrete situations recognize behaviours that are beneficial or harmful to their health.
- Nature: Health: 1.11 The pre-schoolers show good habits in their daily hygiene.
- Nature: Environment: 1.13 The pre-schoolers show an attitude of care and respect for nature.
- Maths Initiation: Measuring: 2.2 The pre-schoolers can compare things qualitatively and bring them together based on one or two common characteristics
- Maths Initiation: Measuring: 2.4 the pre-schoolers can in concrete situations perform actions with shapes, quantities and figures, depending on a qualitative characteristic.
- Man and society: Me and the other: 1.5 the pre-schoolers can recognize in others feelings such as being afraid, happy, angry and sad and can empathize with these feelings.
- Man and society: Me and the other: 1.6 The pre-schoolers know that people can experience the same situation in various ways and react to it differently.
- Man and society: Me and the other: 1.7 pre-schoolers can show sensitivity to the needs of others.
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Feel: empathize |
Being able to empathize with Red’s feelings. |
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Think: explore |
Be able to explain what a healthy lunch is and what is not healthy.
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Do: work in an organized and active way with children |
Being prepared to taste different flavours. |
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“2.1 By 2030 ... guarantee access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year long” |
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“ensure good health and promote well-being for all ages” |
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“4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire knowledge and skills necessary to promote sustainable development…." |
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"Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns." "12.8 By 2030, guarantee that people everywhere have relevant information and awareness of sustainable development and lifestyles that are in harmony with nature." |
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Prent 0 – titel + cover 
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Picture 1 – Red, the lunch box is curious. 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 2 – Lobke en Brecht 
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Picture 3 – Can Red also join the party? 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 4 – Brecht can choose lunch 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 5 – Red is sad 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 6 - Pear, Carrot, Tomato and Bell Pepper are also not allowed to participate. Red is angry. 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 7 – Tomato is proud 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture • How do fruits and vegetables get all those vitamins? • What are vitamins good for? Can we find out? • Are there any vitamins in a chocolate bun? Then what? (flour, sugars, fats, ...) • Where do fruits and vegetables come from? What do they need to grow? • And what about a banana or a pineapple? Where do they come from? • Can we find that country on the globe? • How do Banana or Pineapple get here (boat, plane)? What do you think of that? TIP: The kaMOShibai story "The pineapple boat" is in line with this and makes the link between the theme of nutrition and the climate (food kilometres) |
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Picture 8 – We must come out of the cupboard 
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Picture 9 – Do you need help? 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture • What is a metre? How can we find out? • Who can point out / draw a metre (e.g. on the ground)? • Who could be behind the mysterious voice? |
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Picture 10 – Bread is strong 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 11 – Bell Pepper has a plan 
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Possible key questions that go with this picture |
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Picture 12 - A beautifully filled lunch box 
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Possible MOS actions |
The characters in the story
• Red, the lunch box: picture 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12.
• Brecht: picture 2, 3, 4, 12.
• Lopke: picture 2, 3, 12.
• Mama: picture 3, 4, 12.
• Green Pear, Orange Carrot, Yellow Bell Pepper, Red Tomato: picture 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12.
• Brown bun: picture 10, 11, 12.
Feelings and faces
• Picture 1: Red is curious.
• Picture 2, 3, 4: Brecht and Lopke are happy.
• Picture 5: Red is sad.
• Picture 6: Red is a bit angry.
• Picture 7: Tomato is proud.
• Picture 8, 10 and 11: Pear Green, Carrot Orange, Bell Pepper Yellow, Tomato Red and Bun Brown are strong.
• Picture 12: everyone is happy.
Research tools
• Picture 2: what do they eat for breakfast?
• Picture 7: what corresponds to the inverted food triangle?
Search well
• Detailed observation
o Picture 1: who still lives in the closet with Red?
o Picture 2: which room is this? What do you discover in the picture? How can you tell it's a birthday? Find Red.
o Find Cat on the pictures: 2, 4, 11, 12.
o Picture 7: look for Pear Green, Carrot Orange, Bell Pepper Yellow, what else do you remember?
• Comparative observation:
o what differences do you see between pictures 1 and 5?
General
all the colours of the rainbow / already / burst / curious / rush in / twinkle / hum / circus acrobat / giving up courage / getting a job done / being proud / stumble / giggle / glow / the top of the table / things are completely different / bump / I disagree / I’m quite happy to do so / in no time / cheering / noise / cupboard door / kitchen table / scramble / long will he live in the gloria / flexible / with all their strength / stand on your side / withstand something / edge / call in chorus / strong as a female bear / ready to fight / coming out / transport / waiting anxiously / give way / stretch / deep voice
Nutrition
sandwich shop / browned / chocolate roll / the perfect mixture of different grains / a real super carrot / a beauty of a loaf of bread / a splendour of a lunch box / luxury sandwich / afternoon lunch / supermarket / vitamins / pre-packaged.
Addendum
seen from the point of view of healthy nutrition, the term "bread box" is somewhat outdated. The box preferably contains more than bread with toppings. Lunch box doesn’t have that connotation.
Empathize with the characters and the course of the story
Promote children’s participation
Empathy moment or activity
• The following ideas can be used for a short moment or can be further developed into an activity.
• Before, after or during the storytelling.
• It is best not to interrupt the story too much.
Empathize with each other through group discussions about feelings connected to lunch boxes, nutrition, food and drink at school, celebrating a birthday, ...
• Do you have a bread box, small boxes or a lunch box? How do you recognize them?
• Do you use your lunch box a lot? Why / why not? Is your lunch box easy to use?
• What do you like to have in your lunch box, backpack ….. to take to school? What do you like, don't like or don't like at all?
• Do you like eating at school, in the classroom…? What's nice about it? What’s not nice?
• What's nice about a party? About a birthday?
• If feasible in this class: How do you feel about the fact that "Red, the lunch box" and her friends are not allowed to go to the school birthday party? Why? Have you ever experienced that you were not allowed to participate? How did/do you react then? What can others do?
Empathize with the characters and the course of the story
• Red, the lunch box with her brother and sister sitting in the cupboard.
• The Janssens family: Brecht, whose birthday is today, sister Lopke and mom, Brecht has chosen a sandwich from the shop and is cycling to school with mom.
• Red and her friends Pear Green, Carrot Orange, Tomato Red, Bell Pepper Yellow and Rolly Brown come up with a plan and come out of the cupboard.
• Brecht comes home after the school day, ...
Enriching free play
• Provide game equipment, fruit and vegetables. Top up with a few bread boxes and lunch boxes, cardboard dishes, jars, ... To put together your own lunch.
• Also provide game equipment from "not so healthy" food.
• Offering opportunities to play different situations (free play): preparing lunch boxes at home, going to the shop, in the restaurant, on a visit, having a party, lunch break at school….
Promote children’s participation
• Let the children elaborate on the story themselves, act out variations, e.g. sister Lopke chooses a donut or vegetables, mum and dad take lunch to work too… also dad or mummy, grandma, grandpa and others come to Brecht’s birthday party and taste what is delicious, healthy and not so healthy.
• Have a look at possible MOS actions at picture 12: let the children personalize their lunch box (face, name…). Regularly give them the opportunity to give the floor to their lunch box. Let them make up their own stories about the adventures of their lunch box and the food in it...
• Give the children the opportunity to choose in books, e.g., what they would like to eat on their birthday. Together with the children, look for criteria that play a role in the choice of food, drink: known or unknown, already tasted or not yet, nicely presented, large / small, many / little, delicious or not so delicious, healthy or not so healthy, cheap or not so cheap…
Observing brown bread, healthy food + organizing a "household activity"
Experiencing and understanding the essence of the inverted food triangle
Experiencing and practising concepts with concrete objects and in concrete situations
Tasting and getting to know flavours
Research into the origin of healthy food
Promote participation by the children and their surroundings
With respect for privacy, explore the foreknowledge and experiences regarding healthy and unhealthy food
• The pre-schoolers are allowed to tell and enumerate what they know, do, want to ask, ... about healthy and unhealthy food, about lunch, breakfast, ...
• Do you have favourite food and drink? A favourite vegetable? Do you have favourite fruit? Or fruits and vegetables that you don't know, don't like?
• They get a lot of opportunities to react to what they see on the theme table, in pictures books, poster, photos and objects ...
• You teach them to brainstorm, help them give each other the floor, to listen, to write down and draw on a flap or on a blackboard.
Observing lunch boxes and packaging, snack boxes, children's thermos flask, drinking bottle, possibly a (bio) doggy box, ...
• Have the pre-schoolers list the characteristics of Red, the Lunch Box.
• Let Red’s brothers and sisters, namely the lunch boxes / bread boxes / the children and teacher’s drinking bottles observe the colour, shape, size, material, closure, decoration, identification mark or first name ...
• Also bring some extra lunch boxes and packaging, or pictures of them, to broaden the diversity and perception.
• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of packaging with lunch boxes / bread boxes.
• What is a doggy box used for?
• Read and explain to the pre-schoolers what information they can find on the packaging of their (favourite) food.
Observe for yourself how pre-schoolers handle their lunch box, drinking bottle and their afternoon lunch
• Who has what kind of bread box, other boxes, lunch box? Who easily recognizes his box? How does the pre-schooler deal with it? Does anyone have problems opening the lunch box independently?
• Who sometimes brings packaging? What happens to the waste?
• Is the box clean, hygienic, fresh?
• What do they bring? What do they eat or drink? What do they like and what is more difficult? How big are the differences in the classroom?
• Do they share or exchange? What remains in the lunch box? What do they do with the rest?
• How do the children who need special food, diet or assistance or are allergic do it?
• Do they provide variation during the week?
• Do the agreements made work in connection with lunch boxes and drinking bottles in the classroom?
• If feasible: who does not have a lunch box, usually an empty lunch box, an untended box, usually unhealthy food or food of which you do not know whether it is healthy? ...
If feasible and desirable, discuss your observations with your colleague, the care teacher, the intern or the principal:
• Draw some conclusions.
• Review and discuss what is going well and how to deal with the differences in class.
• Discuss how this connects to the health / food policy in the school.
Observing brown bread, healthy food + organizing a "household activity"
• Let the pre-schoolers know that they do not have to bring lunch or just bring an empty lunch box.
• Provide pear, carrot, tomato, yellow pepper and brown bread and a few other things.
• Let the children wash their hands and the food. Let them look, feel, taste, describe, cut, prepare the food.
• Prepare an afternoon lunch together, drink water and enjoy it.
• Give the pre-schoolers leftovers in their lunch box.
Experiencing and understanding the essence of the inverted food triangle.
See the food triangle and excercise on line
• Start from the healthy diet in the story and in perception.
• Hang a poster of the inverted nutritional triangle in the classroom and have the pre-schoolers respond to it.
o Look for Pear Green, Carrot Orange, Tomato Red, Bell Pepper Yellow on the poster.
o Also use picture 7 - Tomato is proud. Let the children name the fruits and vegetables on the picture.
o Look for these fruits and vegetables on the food triangle poster.
• Let the pre-schoolers name and draw what they still love eating and drinking. Arrange them on a red sphere or on a green triangle. Green = you can eat or drink more of this. Red = it is best to eat or drink as little as possible of this. Teach the pre-schoolers to distinguish between healthy and not so healthy.
• Let the children play and practise with a red ball and a green triangle and with separate images of food and drink on a magnetic or notice board.
• If this works, you can move on to "drink water every day" and the difference between "dark green" and "light green". As background information for yourself, you can watch the videos about the inverted food triangle and study the data on the website “Gezondleven.be”.
• Continue to monitor this over the next days / weeks. Let the pre-schoolers establish links between what they bring and the poster or refer to it yourself to confirm.
Experiencing and practising concepts with concrete objects and in concrete situations
• Colours, lighter and darker.
• More and less.
• Shapes, triangle, sphere or circle, rectangle (the shape of a lunch box).
Tasting and getting to know flavours
• Explore less known and new healthy snacks, learn to taste.
• Taste games to get to know the different flavours - sour, sweet, salty and bitter.
• Do you have to wash and peel fruit and vegetables? How do you do that with care?
• Set a healthy example yourself!
• Children taste different types of bread, e.g. blindfolded (see key questions and tips of picture 10).
• Write down with the children who likes / dislikes what. Pre-schoolers usually have to taste several times to learn to appreciate different flavours. So keep doing this over a longer period of time. And again count who likes / dislikes it. Compare and determine whether and how preferences evolve.
Research into the origin of healthy food
• Where do Pear Green, Carrot Orange, Tomato Red, Bell Pepper Yellow come from? Who has already seen or tasted one of these foodstuffs at home or with family, neighbours...? What path have they taken before they end up on our plate? What do fruits and vegetables need to grow?
• Depending on the location of the school and the time of the year, visit a local shop or supermarket, a farm, a community or allotment garden, a community or picking farm, an auction, a transport company ...
• Try to come into contact with as many links as possible in the food's journey. Visualize this with drawings and photos.
• Introduce the children to and let them taste "crazy vegetables". They are also delicious but haven’t the right shape or size to be sold in the store.
• Teach children to know, taste and appreciate healthy, local and seasonal food. You can also make soup once or several times with local vegetables. See MOS action card "Soup with balls!"
• How can you package, transport and store fruit and vegetables? What are the pros and cons of this?
• Compare with a pineapple and a banana. Where do they come from? (see key questions and TIP in picture 7)
• Where do you get healthy bread? How do you bake bread yourself? What do you need for that? Visit or invite someone;
Why is healthy food better?
• Let the children think about what can happen when you do not eat and drink healthily at all, or if you eat too many sweets: getting ill, catching a cold or the flu more quickly, becoming overweight, bad teeth, difficult to participate, less muscle strength, wounds do not heal just as quickly, growth is slower, ...
• Sweet buns contain too many sugars and fats.
• Fruits and vegetables contain more vitamins than chocolate buns (see key questions in picture 7). Healthy food gives you – among other things – energy. You get more fibres and vitamins. They are necessary for growth and development, to be active and to grow well.
Promote participation by the children and their surroundings
• Let children formulate the pros and cons of healthy and not so healthy food themselves.
• Artistic processing "my lunch box is healthy": the pre-schoolers can handle their experiences, observations and information in many ways through images, music, drama, movement, media, ...
• Invite or visit someone who grows healthy food, bakes healthy bread, dietician, fruit lover or grower, health worker, baker, cook, kitchen helper, gardener, vegetarian cook, vegetable
grower, organic farmer, ... They should be able to show you some things, compare and let the children taste.
For those who want even more
•… 'Flemish toddlers and pre-schoolers generally don’t eat and drink enough healthy food such as vegetables and fruit and unsweetened drinks, such as water and milk. Toddlers also eat too many energy-rich but not very nutritious products such as cookies and sugared drinks "…. From "Healthy food for toddlers and pre-schoolers" © 2019 Flemish Association of Paediatrics vzw / Kind en Gezin.
• Find out about the differences and the similarities between healthy and sustainable food. See for example the brochure 'Sustainable food for babies and toddlers' 2015, Vredeseilanden (now Rikolto).
• Get to know (healthy?) food for children in the past and elsewhere on the basis of stories and testimonials from parents and grandparents.
• Make the connection with the children's "right to food". Every child has the right to a healthy diet. Introduce the kids to peers' midday lunch elsewhere.
Get started with the conclusions you’ve come to during the observations
Continue to offer a healthy afternoon lunch and sample games
Organizing a show moment for parents, other classes...
Organize a lunch box potluck in agreement with parents and colleagues
Partnership project with parents and grandparents
Parents and children’s participation
Get started with the conclusions you’ve come to during the observations
• You have drawn some conclusions after observing how pre-schoolers deal with their lunch box, drinking bottle and their midday lunch.
• Use the quality circle (plan-do-check-act) and adjust your classroom habits where necessary. Determine which action is feasible and desirable. Hold on and aim at securing a good and permanent habit. If feasible in agreement with your colleague and in accordance with your school's health / nutrition policy.
Continue to offer a healthy afternoon lunch and sample games
• Prepare sample games and a healthy afternoon lunch regularly and enjoy them together.
• Leave the inverted food triangle poster in the classroom so that children or you can establish a link and refer to it.
Organizing a show moment for parents, other classes...
Other children, parents... are given the opportunity to get acquainted with the story of Red, the lunch box:
• The story can be told or acted out.
• Theme table and artistic work are exhibited.
• The children themselves explain and show what is healthy food and drink. They show how they get a lot of energy and vitamins from it (see e.g. movement moment circus acrobats)
• The children ask for help to keep up with their choice for healthy food. They may also indicate what they would like to taste, eat and drink for their birthday.
• Anyone who wants, can taste it.
Inform the parents
• A lot of tips for a healthy lunch and variation can be found at
o https://www.rekenleven.be/nieuws/terug-naar-school-of-het-werk-verreken-je-gezonde-lunch-niet
o https://www.rekenleven.be/files/voeding/Een-evenvragen-gevulde-brooddoos-template-voor-ouders.pdf
o http://www.gezondheidopvoeden.be/voeding/de-gezonde-brooddoos
• Motivating parents works best during one or more open welcome moment(s) in the classroom, on a parents' evening, during a theme evening, or where necessary by building up a relationship of trust, a home visit ...
Organize a lunch box potluck in agreement with parents and colleagues
• See tip at picture 12. Discuss whether it is feasible in your class group. Treat with respect what children bring or with parents you cannot easily reach.
• Clear agreements with parents and children can be a fun way to get to know and appreciate each other's habits and eating culture. You can also discover different tastes. Preferably no candy or cookies.
• Bring your own lunch box with healthy food and provide some extra healthy snacks.
Partnership project with parents and grandparents
Parents play an important role. They have a stronger influence on their children’s eating and drinking habits than their peers. Children imitate their parents' eating habits. Parents usually also take care of the contents of the lunch box. A healthy assortment in nurseries and kindergartens is necessary in order to encourage good eating habits. Raising children to have good eating habits is a shared responsibility.
You can decide with a few parents and grandparents during an agreed period, or even weekly, to provide a healthy lunch in the classroom. In addition, cooperation is interesting to:
• also provide a healthy lunch on other days, in the lunch box and at home;
• passing on recipes, experiences, proposals for variation and success formulas;
• reach as many parents and grandparents as possible;
• sharing fruit, vegetables and leftovers.
If you want to develop this properly as a project, you can use the 7-step plan of The Flemish Institute for Healthy Living. That is also useful at class level. The 7 steps are:
- ensure a broad support in the school and among the (grand)parents of your class;
- chart current actions regarding nutrition at school: see elsewhere at "Observing for yourself how pre-schoolers handle their lunch box, drinking bottle and their afternoon lunch";
- determine priorities and objectives;
- work out an action plan on healthy nutrition in a special working group;
- implement the action plan;
- evaluate and adjust;
- embed the actions and conclusions in the classroom events and in the school policy if possible.
See: https://www.gezondheidleven.be/settings/gezonde-school/een-voedingsbeleid-op-school/op-weg- Naar-een-voedingsbeleid
Parents and children’s participation
• You respect the children's opinion and their loyalty towards the eating habits at home. You give children plenty of opportunity in the classroom to experience and discuss the pros and cons of nutrition.
• You offer children alternatives related to healthy food so that they can choose and grow in their personal preferences.
• Your actions at school can only be successful if you:
o build upon the children’s questions and suggestions.
o inform parents and educators and invite them to cooperate.
For those who want even more
• Organize activities that go one step further than the lunch box or the afternoon lunch at school:
o a healthy breakfast at school;
o an international breakfast. Try to establish the link with the inverted food triangle and discover healthy varieties for breakfast and midday lunch;
o a world meal (see: wereldmaaltijd.nl) or a “togetherness and solidarity” meal: as a group, what everyone in this world should be able to eat, because there is enough for everyone.
• Participate in the improvement of the health policy, the nutrition policy and the social disadvantage policy of the school, so that your initiatives could be part of it. Check with the CLB (pupil counselling centre) whether it is feasible and desirable for the school to better meet the basic needs of children.
