Healthy Habits: Elizabeth Marshall
Four-year-old Mary Beth couldn’t remember the name of the green fruit with black dots as she carefully placed slices in her glass with strawberries, blueberries, pineapple and cherries. But she knew she liked it. “Kiwi!” she remembered.
Decatur home day care provider Elizabeth Marshall showed Mary Beth and four other pre-schoolers how to build yummy fruit-yogurt parfaits to create a healthy snack. Elizabeth learned about the activity from WILL’s Healthy Habits for Life workshop led by educational outreach director Molly Delaney.
“It was great to get some new ideas,” said Elizabeth. “Sometimes I feel like I do the same things over and over. I was looking for easy things to do with the kids that teach them about healthy things to eat and do.” The children loved piling the colorful fruit in clear plastic glasses, and then topping it with yogurt before digging in. Elizabeth said she also got ideas about how to incorporate more movement into the schedule for children at her day care. Thirty-eight child care providers who work with 461 children participated in the workshop, learning about nutrition, physical activity, hygiene and relaxation.
Through interactive parent/child Healthy Habits workshops at Parkland Community College, Urbana Adult Education, Urbana’s Washington Early Childhood Program, and C-U Early, Healthy Habits reached another 152 adults and 214 children last year.
The Healthy Habits project, part of WILL’s Young Learners Initiative, is sponsored in part by Kraft Foods, Kirby Foods, Tate & Lyle, and SuperValu.
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