Happy new year to all of our fabulous schools! We hope you had a lovely break. This term we're looking forward to launching our Early Years Cooking Skills scheme of work, delivering some fun Fairtrade Fortnight and Lunar New Year food prep sessions, as well as exhibiting at the Childcare Expo in London. It's shaping up to be a busy term!
In this newsletter we've included links to our new D&T schemes of work and knowledge organisers; information and ideas for Children's Mental Health Week, as well as recipe ideas for Fairtrade Fortnight and the upcoming Lunar New Year. Also you must check out the new Better Health campaign 'Scan, Swipe, Swap' - fabulous take home packs available to share the information with your families.
We hope you find these newsletters useful as we move throughout the school year. Please do give us feedback - tell us what you want to hear more (or less) of, and do encourage colleagues to sign up too if you find it useful. There's a link to sign up on our website, or your colleagues can simply email us at help@phunkyfoods.com
NEW D&T SCHEMES OF WORK - Knowledge Organisers
Our new D&T Schemes of Work are now complete with bright and colourful knowledge organisers to display in the classroom.
Incorporating key vocabulary, essential facts and D&T skills, these will help children gain, retain and build on knowledge, as well as help to direct your teaching.
You can use them as a regular knowledge retrieval tool in quizzes and games; to identify knowledge gaps, or; to stimulate discussion in school or at home.
However you use them, we hope you enjoy delivering these and would love to hear your feedback.
NHS BETTER HEALTH - SCAN, SWIPE, SWAP CAMPAIGN
The NHS Better Health campaign have launched their new Food Scanner App, and they have produced resources for schools to help promote it. The new Scan, swipe, swap resources use the NHS Food Scanner app to help pupils explore what is in their food and drink and swap unhealthy foods that are high in saturated fat, sugar and salt, to healthier choices. The app is free to download, and the resources are free too. You can find them here.
They've also added take-home packs too - order yours today!
FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT - 28th February - 6th March 2022
We deliver lots of food prep sessions each year during Fairtrade Fortnight and at other times, using fairtrade products such as bananas. These sessions give us an opportunity to discuss the important topics of social, environmental and economic sustainability in a simple way, whilst working on our D&T skills and making something totally delicious to eat!
If you'd like a go at making this lovely banana bread, whilst discussing the importance of the concept of fair trade, you can check out the recipe and some suggested classroom activities on the website, in our Fair Trade Topic Based Activity.
LUNAR NEW YEAR - 1st February 2022
Spring Rolls (Chun Juan in Chinese) are a popular food to help celebrate the Spring Festival of Lunar New Year in mainland China; hence the name! They are eaten as a symbol of wealth and prosperity because they look like little bars of gold.
Filled with noodles and vegetables, these are delicious dipped in sweet chilli, or a soy-based dipping sauce. Fun and simple to make in the classroom or at home!
Woodlands Academy have been actively engaged with the Phunky Foods Programme since November 2016, following a training day run by Helen our local co-ordinator.
This term, we appointed two new Ambassadors to focus on the Eatwell message. As a result of the Covid pandemic, many of our children and families have slipped into less healthy eating patterns, and it seemed appropriate to go back to basics and remind everyone about the importance of eating a healthy balanced diet.
Our Y6 Ambassadors delivered a wonderful assembly about the Eatwell Guide to Years 2,3 and 4 (we are a two-form entry school so this was around 180 children). They followed this up a month later, with an Eatwell Guide reminder activity with one of our Y3 classes, handing out stickers to children for taking part.
The Ambassadors are currently running a lovely KS2 competition, where children are invited to design a salad bowl using ingredients from each of the food groups of the Eatwell Guide.
We had lots of entries from Years 3 and 4, and our three winners received first prize of a Phunky Foods water bottle, second prize, a fruit Christmas tree kit, and third prize a phunky foods pen and sticker. Pictures of the winning entries were shared in our school newsletter.
In September, I contacted Helen, our co-ordinator as our Year1 team were interested in a funded visit to a working farm. Helen provided us with details of two suitable local farms, but also put in touch with our local LEAF regional co-ordinator who happened to have funding to organize a “Chef on the Farm” event. As a result, we arranged for 30 of our pupil premium/free school meal children to attend the farm on 12th November for a whole day of activities, including a tour of the farm and cookery session with a professional chef. This was a wonderful opportunity for these children who might not otherwise get to take part in such activities.
Mrs Louise Corbett - Year 2 Teacher, Design and Technology Lead.
DON'T FORGET CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH WEEK
Children's Mental Health Week is taking place on 7-13 February 2022. This year's theme is Growing Together.
Children will be asked to consider how they have grown, and how they can help others to grow.
There are some fantastic free resources at www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/ so take a look. It would also be relevant to link in with your school gardening club of course - to discuss growth and also as a medium for relaxation and wellbeing.
If you need help with your school gardening club you can use the PhunkyFoods resources too. PhunkyGARDENING Club - Week by week theory and practical activity ideas for both the classroom and the garden will inspire your school gardening club.
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