Hands-On Health Deliciousness!

​Teaching homeschool is so much fun!  When Jen and I started teaching homeschool one of the things we both felt strongly about was that creative teaching methods and out-of-the-box assignments are the best ways to help kids understand what they're learning and give them critical thinking skills.  We keep this in mind every day when we're thinking of new lessons for our students, and we want to help you apply these ideas to your homeschool too!

One way to do this is with your health class.  This year we combined health with a living skills class and taught the kiddos how to make some basic foods so they can get down the skills they need for a healthy lifestyle nice and early.  The kids' favorite snack to make by far is fruit bugs.  I got the instructions from Nature's Path​ and if you click on the link it will take you to the directions we loosely followed.  This was such a fun project for the kids and for us!

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Jen and I have been team teaching and letting our classes build off each other so the students can see how everything is connected.  One of the services PHC offers is in-home teaching for families in the Twin Cities Metro Area.  This year Jen taught health class, where she taught the food groups and the different nutrients we need from different kinds of foods.  Then I taught them some recipes.   This gives the students a chance to actually do things instead of just reading or listening, and they now have skills to go with their knowledge.  And it was so much fun!

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While we made these fruit bugs I made sure the kids kept many kitchen skills in mind including:

• proper hand washing methods when preparing food
• cleanliness of the food preparation area
• proper knife skills and choosing the right knife for the right job
• how to use a vegetable peeler without getting cut
• why it's important to wash fruits and veggies before we eat them

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Perfection in fruit form

​One great thing about this project was how much creativity the kids got to exhibit.  They worked quietly and diligently for a good hour to get their bugs just right before gobbling them down!

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This fruit dragonfly is coming to get me!

These ants on a log are packed with nutrients!

With some creative thinking we modified the instructions so that even the picky eaters could enjoy!

Our finished products may not be the neatest, but the homeschool students had a lot of fun, learned how to make a healthy snack, and got some creative thinking time in.  All in all it was a huge success!  We recommend this project as a fun way to spend some quality school time.