By

Alexia Adcock-Stanford,   Atlantic Beach Elementary School

Play:

Topics:

Access to Healthy Foods, Community Involvement, Physical Activity Participation, Student Leadership, Success with Funds,  Teamwork

A dedicated group of Fuel Up to Play 60 Club members and students came together to give a presentation on February 14th, 2018 called the Heart Healthy Heroes. The students and I met on a weekly basis for 6 weeks to do research on what was a perfect portion size for foods in a meal. We created a presentation in which they took turns speaking into a microphone, demonstrating how you could measure without any measuring devices, put together a heart pumping square dance and a skit called Peter Piper’s Portion Perfect Peck of Pickled Peppers. Through Peter Piper’s poem, the kids learned how he grew his own food, prepared it, and packed it in the proper portion size to take for lunch. The show was a complete success! At the end of the presentation and because of the generous grant funding, each child and teacher in the school was given their very own portion perfect packer- a small, brightly colored, easy snap-top lidded container to pack in a lunch box. The kids were so excited to get their very own container that day. One teacher told me 75% of her class brought their container back the next day with healthy snacks in them. One of the most validating statements I heard came form a grandmother of one of the kindergarten students about a week after the presentation. She said she had tried to pack a small cupcake in the container and her grandson stopped her and said, “NO grandma. That is my SPECIAL container and it is ONLY for HEALTHY food like fruits and vegetables.” It can’t get much more successful than that!!

How did students and adults work together as a team?

We met once a week for about 6 weeks to plan and prepare the presentation. I supervised and gave advice and the students talked and came up with the order of the presentation.

How did you accomplish your goals?

We met once a week for about 6 weeks to plan and prepare the presentation.

How do you plan to make this Play last during the school year and beyond?

The portion perfect containers have already made a positive impact upon the students and can be used and reused for the school year and many days to come. We will most likely use them as a fundraiser in the future.