Lunch!

The children are really settling back in after having a couple of long breaks with the holidays and the snow days (that were technically cold days), and one of the easiest way to see this is how well they follow the lunch routine. The children are dismissed to wash their hands, grab their lunch box and find their name tag in the lunch room. The name tags are a relatively new addition to ensure that the younger children end up at a table they can reach properly.

At the beginning of the year we send a note home with parents giving them some specific instructions for their child's lunch. We are a nut free school and it's important that parents do not send peanut butter sandwiches or trail mix to avoid this. We also request that they specifically pack a protein, vegetable and fruit in their lunch box. The children are taught which food is which and eat them in order to ensure that they get enough healthy and filling food. This is super important because we have some children who stay until 5 o'clock and not having a full stomach can make those last few hours miserable. The children are also in charge of cleaning up their own spot, sweeping or wiping with a sponge as needed, and packing everything back in their lunch box.

Today all the children where in the lunch room in under ten minutes. They remembered which food they needed to eat first (after all it takes some willpower to eat that chewy sandwich before those sweet strawberries) and generally sat nicely in their chairs. We have really been focusing on having them sit properly at the table and they have been really responsive to the point where it only takes asking "Could you scoot in?" to have them turn forward and eat over their place at the table.

The best part of this? When the children are settled and focused at lunch they eat faster, which means they get dressed earlier and we get more outside time. Recently we had a group sled dog race, I explained a little bit about the Iditarod and then paired younger and older children to be sled dogs and mushers. The children loved it and it's been hilarious to see them continuing the game independently during the recess free time. All this because they have a good lunch routine that fills them up, and still gives time for playing.