What’s that feeling in my mouth?

Okay, this one may sound gross from the title, but it is a lot of fun and requires a lot of creative thinking on the student’s part.

During one of our lunch sessions at my last job, my students were bored with the usual, colorful food, mindful eating, thinking about their food that we had been doing. I needed something else to grab them. That year, I had a lot of kids that liked to talk about gross stuff. Gross feelings, gross smells, gross stories, all of it was gross. This gave me the inspiration for this mindful eating exercise.

Set a timer for 5 minutes. During this time, as the children to quietly eat their lunches. They have to sample everything in their lunch. Then, they must determine what each food feels like in their mouth. What does the PB and J feel like? Soft? Sticky? Gooey? How does a chip feel? Hard? Sharp? How about Jell-O? Wiggly?

The students will then take 5 or so silent minutes to feel their food in their mouths. Then, give them another 5 minutes to talk about the feelings with their table or with the people near them. Allow a few minutes at the end of lunch to discuss what their food felt like.

I used this to work on descriptive words as well. Students would need to give me words better than just “soft” or “hard”. Some gave me very creative words. Chicken nuggets felt “crumbly then soft”. Chips felt “sharp and breakable”. A brownie felt “smooth and thick”.

Happy eating!

Mindful Eating: Sounds

I haven’t done one of these in a while. Mindful eating. Even though my new job does not allow me to be with my students when they are eating their lunches, I still remember my old lunch challenges.

Here was one that was a lot of fun for my 2nd and 3rd graders.

When the students open their lunches they are to lay it out so that they can see all of their food. They are to make a prediction (if you want they can write this down, or you can write it on the board). This prediction is about the different sounds. They can predict which will be the loudest food, the quietest food, which will have a crunch, which will make a squish, the weirdest sound, anything.

My favorites were the loud and quiet foods. The loud foods once set us on a competition. The class decided we needed to experiment and see who had the loudest food in the entire class. The students tested their foods and found their loudest food. Then they were to finish the rest of their lunch, but leave one piece of the loud food. When everyone was mostly done eating, the students would take turns telling us what their food was, and then taking one bite. That was all. Then we all voted on who had the loudest sound.

This made a fun science experiment as well as a nice way to keep everyone quiet so they could hear their food for the entire lunch period.

Try this out with your class during your next lunch period!

 

Lovely Lunches

When I was in elementary school my parents made it a point to make sure I knew they cared. I received little notes from them in my lunch box every day. Some had a joke and some were encouraging. But all were sweet.

As we have entered February my students are learning about Love. We have parent read alouds about it as well as some lessons that go along with it. I thought it would be nice to continue the tradition of lunch notes by having the kids write one for their parents.

We used large note cards but you can use any piece of small paper. They could use pen or pencil. No markers as this was just a note and not an art project.

The students were given the below instructions which were explained as we went.

1. Eat your lunch. This way you can thank your parents for packing it or for paying for the hot lunch that you got.
2. Think of something nice about your lunch. What was your favorite thing to eat?
3. Begin your note with a thank you. Thank them for the yummy meal you got.
4. Wish them a good day. You will give them this note for their lunches tomorrow. Make sure you tell them to have a good day.
5. Tell them you love them.
6. Sign it. My parents used to draw a cartoon face of themselves. I told them they can sign like that or write their name.

The students were then told that they get to be sneaky when they get home. If they know the parent has a lunch bag then they can throw it in there. If not, then they get to put it in the purse, bag, backpack, or whatever the parent takes to work. Some asked about what bag since the parent changes bags. I told them they can be sneaky and put it wherever they wanted. Just as long as mom or dad could find it.

It turned out really well with cute notes. I haven’t gotten any sneaky stories yet but I look forward to it.

Hope you all have a great day and enjoy the love!

Mindful Eating Challenge 1 (Brightest Color)

Mindful eating is a great practice! For those unfamiliar with Mindfulness it is the practice of focusing on purpose. It is taking time to notice something and keep your focus on that thing for a certain period of time. In our room we teach our students to be mindful throughout the day on different things. Usually it is to be mindful of their bodies and notice how they are sitting. Are you sitting up straight with your feet on the floor? Then you are sitting like a model student and are prepared to learn.

Mindful eating is another practice we use in our room. It lasts about 5 minutes. The students will begin their lunches and take 5 minutes of quiet mindful eating. They will sit with the lights off and take this time to notice their food. They can notice the texture, the taste, the smell, or the appearance of their lunches.

Some days I like to give them a mindful challenge at lunch. In this section of the blog you will find a lot of these challenges where I will ask the students to focus on something specific or do complete a fun activity during lunch.

The first mindful challenge is about the appearance of their food. This is an easy challenge to start on. The students will take the time to focus on what their food looks like, specifically the color. The challenge will be to notice which food has the brightest color in their lunch.

Here is where the challenge gets interesting for the teacher. You can keep track of this challenge 2 ways.

1. Have the students go around the room and share their colors. They can either end the challenge there or they can compare with the rest of the class and see who has the brightest color.
2. Earn reward. My students have a point system in our room where we use “model student points”. I’ve had the students write the brightest color food on a post it and place it on my desk. Another version is to have them remember to give it to you. I leave the room to go work in another department during their lunch period. The students will have to remember to tell me the answer to the challenge. If they tell me the next day they will earn a point. You could also give them a point for completing the challenge.

Mindful eating is a great way to get students to calm down at a time they usually get very loud and excitable. It also helps them to practice their attention skills and learn how to narrow their focus onto something specific.

Happy Eating!