Why Shouldnt Teachers Use Food for Arts and Crafts in the Classroom?

When at that place are starving children all around the world, should we encourage children to play with food? Is information technology wasteful to play with food? I hear lots of people use this reasoning when they see an action where food is used with children.

Is it Wasteful to Play with Food?

Today I share this topic with you, not as just a teacher or mom, only as someone who has spent three months with some of the poorest children in the globe. These are footling ones I lived among, sang songs with, hugged, prayed with, and even wept over. Their photos are in my abode, reminding me of their cute hearts and particularly of their struggles and challenges.

Photograph courtesy of One Kid Matters

The most necessary basics for life are food, water, and shelter. When I think of these precious families, information technology reminds me of the bloated bellies I saw due to lack of nutrient and necessary nutrients. I think of the dirty water that surrounded them — that they relied on. My mind goes back to the moments I would see them excitedly running toward me — with just a shirt on and nothing else. Not fifty-fifty pants or shoes. I think of how exhausted some of them were because they were so hungry and slept on clay floors. My life had been changed forever.

When I hear people mentioning that playing with food is wasteful, it takes my mind back to the slums of India. More that though, it shows me that our perception of poverty is very limited. I capeesh that people have concerns for starving children. My heart has been broken over these needs. However, we have failed to realize that there is so much more to poverty. And then when you lot ask me if I would agree that it is wasteful for children to do activities with food, this is my response.

Photo courtesy of One Child Matters

It is equally wasteful to play with nutrient as it is to:

• Take a shower
• Run through a sprinkler
• Play in a water table
• Ain multiple pairs of shoes
• Buy brand new clothes
• Allow food mold or elapse
• Put leftover food in the garbage or down a garbage disposal

When I moved from a third world country dorsum to my home in the U.Due south., I experienced severe guilt every unmarried day for months. I virtually sold my motorcar, even though there was not much around me that was within walking distance. I started turning off the water in my shower whenever I wasn't rinsing. I couldn't justify ownership new apparel. The thought of non finishing the food on my plate was unimaginable. And certainly buying shoes unless my own were completely worn out was out of the picture.

Every bit yous might have wondered, I did piece of work through this. I have bought new clothes, and I drive a car on a regular ground. I visit water parks and pull out the water table often. I don't judge people for cut the crusts off staff of life or eating at a cafe.

I had to find a remainder inside myself to process the 2 different worlds I had lived in. I came to a realization that I live in a culture that is arable and affluent. Instead of feeling guilty, I was much better off to exercise generosity and frugality. I'll never lose sight of what true poverty is though, and it is withal difficult for me to purchase a new pair of shoes. In fact, it has probably been at least five years since I've bought more a couple pair of flip-flops for myself.

Does It Help Raise Sensation to Avoid Playing With Food?

Some have said that when we don't allow children to play with food that information technology helps teach children about those who are experiencing hunger. I was told about poverty all my life. I saw the commercials with the adorable children who wore muddied wearing apparel and were playing in the streets. I was more knowledgeable well-nigh the topic of poverty from these, only I had no clue what true poverty was. I can go to a grocery shop, turn on water from a faucet, and purchase anything. It wasn't until I saw it first-hand and lived among it for several months that I really understood it though.

I retrieve that a more than constructive strategy to help child understand hunger and poverty would be to swallow rice for an entire calendar week or to buy holding for someone in need.

Playing with food can be an incredible learning feel, specifically with sensory play. I've had children with incredible texture aversions answer well to food after rejecting nearly everything else. They felt comfy with it and familiar with it, so it was more inviting.

If you lot desire to help those who are less fortunate, I wish I could hug y'all right here and now and show you my true thanks on behalf of them! There are people of the world who depend on our generosity to survive, and I believe you lot can brand an amazing difference! Here are some of the means and programs that I personally contribute to aid poverty equally well as some that my shut friends speak wonderfully of (although I know there are many more than incredible and reputable organizations as well):

• Donate to a food bulldoze or fifty-fifty host ane
• Sponsor a kid in need
• Donate money towards  water for those who need information technology
• Help poverty-stricken communities create jobs
• Await around your own community and volunteer at a homeless shelter or manus out food and necessities

How can we be more than aware while using food for activities with children?

I also think in that location are ways to play with nutrient that are more conscientious. Here are some of the few ideas that come up to heed:

• Employ rice, beans, or other stale foods and pastas that are expired
• Collect foods that people no longer want and would have just thrown away otherwise
• Apply products outside that will do good nature and wild fauna such as putting birdseed inside an outdoor sensory table

The photo pictured above was from a box of Cheerios that I spilled all over the floor one solar day.

Let'due south take a expect at playdough!

Playdough is a staple of many classrooms and programs for children. It's for a skillful reason besides. Playdough promotes creativity, hands-on learning, fine motor development, sensory stimulation and development, and information technology's even calming and therapeutic. Accept you always thought of it as playing with nutrient though?

While we don't consider information technology something nosotros would encourage children to consume, especially because of the loftier content of salt, it is made of all nutrient products. The ingredients of playdough are the same ingredients necessary to bake staff of life (obviously in different amounts and with the addition of yeast), and they are even the ingredients you would use to make noodles (merely add an egg and different proportions).

I don't retrieve we should ban playdough though. Imagine all the rich learning experiences that would fall to the wayside. It was even a sanity saver in my big classes when the children just needed to manipulate, touch, and feel. Playing with food tin be a wonderful experience for children and provide them amazing outlets for inventiveness, sensory stimulation, and for movement.

It is important to exist mindful when using food though. Are at that place allergies among the children? Are there children who are actually hungry and need their bellies fed beginning? Are they from a family unit that doesn't accept plenty nutrient in their pantry or refrigerator to make dinner that evening? Do you live in a country where this is not culturally acceptable or fifty-fifty appropriate? Each person has to make up one's mind for himself and herself if their setting is an appropriate and respectful place to provide food for an activity. There is no coating answer to this.

What if your identify of employment does non let playing with food?

I have worked in accredited kid intendance programs, so I know that some programs merely just practise not permit food for play. I encourage you lot to respect that and abide by it. At that place are ever rules and regulations that people do not see centre to eye on. Yous could always respectfully pass this article on to them though as "nutrient for thought." Peradventure hosting a food bulldoze at your school would be the perfect option or fifty-fifty sponsoring a child for your class.

At present that you know my accept on playing with food, hither are some more than great articles on the topic:

Word on food use in the Early on Childhood Classroom by Teach Preschool

Should Food Be Used in Preschool Sensory Activities past Tinkerlab has lots of pros and cons

Read some more than of my nearly popular posts!

Preschool Readiness

Learning Through Play — Why it Matters

 Magnetic Discovery Bottles

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Katie has spent 17 combined years in the Early on Childhood field equally a instructor, preschool owner, and educational writer. She has worked in profit and non-profit programs, loftier-risk schools, and started an in-domicile preschool and outdoor collaborative preschool programme. She adores being a mom to three children, and her youngest is currently in preschool.

robertshandond99.blogspot.com

Source: https://preschoolinspirations.com/is-it-wasteful-to-play-with-food/

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