Learning new children's recipes during Healthy Thursdays
Meeting the Plenitud PR team has been a blessing in my life and so many others. I learned about them when they came to the school where I teach, Dr. Silverio Medina Gaud in Las Marías. Their group started to share knowledge about planting and preparing crops with the entire school community: teachers as well as students ranging from 1st to 5th grades. The two amazing Holistic Educators from Plenitud PR’s team, Jaris and Marlia, go to our school weekly along with other staff to give agriculture lessons that raise awareness about the importance of having a home garden, and to put into practice with our students what they have learned in the school’s eco-creative garden spaces.
An “eco-creative garden space” is a space at the schools where students garden, have outdoor classes, and create art to enhance creative thinking in the space. Here, students are making water color paintings using natural paints.
I was also able to meet Paula Paoli, the Co-Executive Director of Plenitud PR who invited me to be part of the Healthy Eating and Wellness Course. This course has made a great impact in my life because we were able to learn together during the eight weeks of the course and become a big family. Ever since it ended in November 2022, we hold regular reunions to prepare and learn new recipes that help us lead a healthier life. Through the Healthy Eating course, not only did I learn how to prepare food and share it with my family and friends, I’ve been able to share the knowledge with my students as well. For me, being able to prepare food in a healthy way is so important and, at the same time, truly fun because I have learned to play with flavors and different spices that give a special touch to the food. The inspiration from this initiative and its programs for Children and Youth is what has allowed us to integrate the Healthy Thursday program into my English class.
Virgen sharing about the success of Healthy Thursdays in changing her students and their families eating patterns!
Healthy Thursdays are celebrated once a month, and students have the opportunity to learn how to make easy and healthy meals that they can share with their families at home. Students look forward to each Healthy Thursday because it is a unique and fun experience for them, and they get to explore new flavors and healthy recipes. Throughout this school semester, students had the opportunity to prepare several recipes that allowed them to see fruits, vegetables and grains in a whole new way.
On the first Healthy Thursday, my students reviewed the names of fruits in English and Spanish. Our first recipe consisted of preparing fruit pinchos or kebabs! It was an engaging activity for students as they were able to cut fruits by themselves to make their own skewers. And these kebabs were delicious!
The students loved learning about local, tropical fruits grown here in Puerto Rico and practicing cutting them for their kebabs!
Marlia teaching about the ingredients for the chickpea tuna salad recipe.
Our second Healthy Thursday recipe was chickpea tuna salad. At first, several students said they didn't like chickpeas, but when they had the chance to prepare the recipe and taste it, they loved it!
The third recipe that caught the attention of students was a vegan sandwichitos de mezcla. This is a traditional Puerto Rican sandwich that is normally made with SPAM meat, but we use white beans instead! Through this recipe, the students could see the number of ways to eat beans.
They couldn’t believe that a mix of white beans and other non-meat ingredients would taste very similar to the ham sandwiches they are used to eating!
To culminate this semester's round of Healthy Thursday's recipes, students learned how to prepare a banana and chocolate “nice” cream bowl (recipe below!). We had a lot of fun preparing this recipe! We had a good laugh when Marlia and Jaris started pouring the ingredients into the blender because when they attached it to the machine without its lid, it was already on and there was an "explosion" of ingredients everywhere. We couldn't stop laughing!
From left to right: Marlia surprised after the banana “nice cream” mixture exploded over the classroom; Virgen demonstrating her healthy banana “nice” cream; students enjoying their bowls.
What else can I say? Having the chance to integrate Healthy Thursdays class into my English class was a new and entertaining way to teach my students about the importance of healthy eating. During this semester, in addition to preparing delicious recipes once a month, my students prepared a folder where we worked on weekly activities to learn about healthy eating, both in English and Spanish. Additionally, before preparing each recipe, we review the different ingredients we were going to use in order to know more about their nutritional information.
For both me and my students, being able to integrate the Healthy Thursdays class into the English class was a great help, as we learned a lot, and I am very happy about that! After starting this project, I could see how many of my students became conscious of which foods are healthy and which are not. I am sure that this project not only had an impact on my students and co-workers, who were also able to be part in the making of recipes, but that many families also received this message from their children and were able to benefit. I can say that we accomplished our mission of sharing this message to other people so they can make a positive change in their lives! I encourage other teachers to join in this initiative so that more children can learn to have healthy eating patterns, and contribute to improving their overall wellbeing.
