Introducing KidsFoodJourney and Running the Workshops at Home
If it weren’t for Covid-19, on Monday 11th May I would have been kicking off a new KidsFoodJourney course at Dunbar Primary School. Having had to cancel, I decided the next best thing would be to tidy up and share my lesson plans so parents can take part in the activities at home, and so schools can perhaps run them for those children who are still attending.
These classes are still quite new and always under development. Your feedback would be fantastic. What worked for you, and didn’t work? I really hope you and your children enjoy taking part and going on your own food journeys.
Hannah
Introduction to KidsFoodJourney
I have been running and constantly developing KidsFoodJourney after-school activity workshops for two years, with courses made up of year-groups aged between 4 and 11. The success and popularity of the activities has surprised even me: it has been amazing to see children enthusing over broccoli; making simple snacks for themselves and other people; discovering new foods and learning to like things they previously turned their noses up at.
The course was designed to tackle neophobia, the common fear of trying new foods, and to teach children how to re-frame their approach to trying new foods from away from fear and towards curiosity. KFJ is for all children, from those who love food already to so-called ‘picky eaters’: we generally find that fussy eaters get just as involved with the tastings as other children, and encourage children not to think of themselves as picky or fussy. We welcome and encourage children who restrict themselves to a limited diet to attend. Feedback from parents has indicated that children who complete the course are more open to trying new foods at home, and begin eating a wider range of food including more fruit and vegetables.
I am not a nutritionist. I don’t give nutritional advice, and don’t tell children that certain foods are better or worse than others. KFJ aims to get children enthusiastic about and fascinated by a wide range of foods, particularly those they don’t normally view as fun: fruit and veg.
We taste, explore, play, eat, make and grow. The children love hands-on food preparation and cooking: I often don’t have access to cooking facilities in my workshops, so all food activities are designed to work without an oven. This has turned into a positive, as it means the younger children can safely work through every part of the activity themselves. We plant seeds for the children to take home and watch as they grow and become ingredients we use in our snack activities (which I cheesily call snacktivities).
KidsFoodJourney workshops are based on and inspired by proven methods from a few different taste education programmes. These are:
Dutch school taste education lessons, that were the inspiration for KidsFoodJourney
‘Tiny Tastes’, which I first learned about in Bee Wilson’s wonderful book First Bite: How We Learn To Eat
TastEd school taste education classes in England
Some people are born with the genetic inclination to like certain foods, healthy or sugary. This might give a small advantage or disadvantage in learning to enjoy eating a varied, healthy diet, but the way we teach ourselves to eat (and it is teaching and learning) counts for much more.
KFJ is not about weight or weight-loss. We never discuss weight, and we don’t place any emphasis on foods being healthy or unhealthy. We don’t tell children to eat fruit and vegetables because they’re healthy: we want to teach them to eat them because they’re delicious. We do not want to give children any potentially confusing messages about weight or what they ‘should’ be eating, or come into conflict with what they’re learning through the school curriculum. We’re outwith that entirely: this is about getting silly with food, having fun, and expanding their taste horizons through play and curiosity.
Doing KFJ Activities at Home
You could run through these lesson plans in full, or pick and choose activities. Many will work as a snack-time activity – we hold the workshops after school when the children are all peckish, so we start the club with a ‘snacktivity’.
It’s a good idea to make sure the children aren’t full from eating when you take on an activity. Not hungry-cranky of course, but when it comes to trying new foods you can let hunger work for you!
The activities only use common household equipment, and generally the ingredients are easy to source. I have the advantage of working for the Community Carrot, this fantastic community greengrocers that stocks a wide range of interesting fruit and veg, but you can adapt the activities to whatever ingredients you can lay your hands on.
We like these Kuhn Rikon safety knives, which mean we don’t need to supervise each child individually when they’re chopping. They cut fruit and veg, but not fingers – you might need to cut carrots into batons first, they’re best for softer foods.
When we run them in schools, each workshop takes an hour and twenty minutes, with about 15 minutes of this being ‘kit-faff’ (coming in, taking coats off, washing hands etc.). You should keep yours to the limit of your children’s (and your!) attention span. If they get bored with something, move on.
Please read the core concepts in lesson plan 1 before doing any of the activities. Your job as a KFJ teacher is:
To lift all the pressure away from trying foods. No one has to try anything they don’t want to. No one is expected to like anything.
To lead by example – it makes a big difference seeing you eat and enjoy foods first. It also makes a big difference seeing parents persevere with foods they aren’t initially keen on, and eating and taking an interest in a wide variety of foods.
Avoid assuming children will like or dislike anything. Never say: ‘Oh, you won’t like that’. Give new foods to try without prior judgement, and remember tastes can change rapidly with each exposure to a food. Either simply hand them something, or frame it with curiosity.
To always remember: the first, second, third time they try something means nothing! Remind your children: ‘Your taste buds don’t know this food yet, remember your body is getting used to it.’ Don’t tell yourself or them they don’t like a food, but keep presenting and trying it. You can never predict the foods that become favourites.
To remember that children love to play with food; it doesn’t need to be sweet to grab their attention. You would be amazed by how engaged children can get with raw broccoli!