In the Green Room, snack time has become more than simply eating. The teachers and children have taken this opportunity to get to know each other, continue conversations from meeting, talk about how we eat with our families, and try new foods by taking a “brave bite” of something unfamiliar.
We have also used snack as a chance to embed literacy and math in a fun way. Since the children serve themselves, teacher have put out “menus” to help them figure out serving sizes.
These menus relay the information in multiple ways — through pictures, numbers, words, and number representational dots. They are all able to “read” this and know how much to take and are learning to decode symbols at the same time!
The children love these menus, because they provide autonomy and agency instead of having to ask about how much can to take. The few times we’ve had a busy day and couldn’t make a menu, the children will immediately ask “where’s the menu??” This lets us know how important the menus have become!
