Water and Milk Healthier for Kids

  

Offer Water Every time Children Eat

Sixty per cent of children and teens ages 2-19 are drinking one soda or other sugary drink on any given day-- sugar, water, a little flavor, chemicals, and a little fizz, according to federal statistics.

  Pediatrician, Dr. Natalie Muth states,” "For children, the biggest source of added sugars often is not what they eat, it's what they drink." Kids get about 17 percent of their calories from added sugars. About half of those calories come from drinks.

Kid Friendly

  How can we have more water and less sugar? Nutritionists note that toddlers and preschoolers need about 16 ounces of milk a day.  After that, plain water can be the beverage of choice. Two to five cups of water a day are good depending on children’s size and what they are eating. Children ages 5-8 should have 5 glasses; 7 glasses 9-12; 8-10 glasses 13+.   How do we do that?

The WIC program provides milk to families with infants.

  Offer water every time children eat. Dr. Vincent Iannelli asks,” Why not give them water or milk and a piece of fruit.? That is better for nutrition and their teeth. A medium strawberry has only ½ gram of sugar. Families can provide water during mealtimes and snacks rather than sugary juice or soda. Drinking water rather than soda is cheaper, caffeine free, sweetener free, and will become a habit.  Some suggestions to encourage drinking water include: providing everyone with really cool and safe reusable water bottles. Put cucumbers slices in the water to add flavor. Lemon may be too acidic on teeth. Send children to school with a water bottle. Choose water when eating out.  It is much cheaper.

  Nutritionists suggest families set a good example. Eat a small snack and drink water or skim milk with our children. Have our snack at the kitchen table rather in front of the TV, phone, or computer to be aware that we are eating. A very tasty milk snack is a smoothie of milk and a few strawberries. 

Detectives

  

Read Nutrition Labels - BYO Beverages

 Young children can be taught how to read numbers on nutrition labels looking for all the words for sugar-- real or artificial-- salt, and chemicals. Usually chemical additives have very long names. Children can look for the number of sugar grams and become very aware of what they eat. These little food detectives can compare labels to find the lowest amounts of sweeteners and salt in all kinds of food.

   One gram of sugar equals 1/4 teaspoon. One Coke has about 10 teaspoons of sugar. One eight -ounce glass of orange juice also has 10 teaspoons of sugar. Milk has a little over 3 teaspoons of sugar and many nutrients. Google images has pictures of sugars in drinks. Search for “one gram of sugar visual.” For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org.

WIC Photo: Stephanie Booth, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Water faucet photo: mitwa17/Creative Commons

Transparent Water Bottles: Creative Commons (Attribution 3.0) Categories: Vector Background, Vector Food File Format: EPS - bottles, package, transparent, water

Keeping Toddlers Safe Challenging By Esther Macalady

Water Safety Starts with Knowledge

Someone once said that silence is golden unless you have a very young child and then it is suspicious.  Keeping this age safe is a 24/ 7 job.  Here are tips from the Department of Health and Human Services and emergency physicians.

Water

  Stay with young kids every minute they are around water.  Records show they can drown in as little as one inch of water.

 Use flotation devices that fit since water wings and noodles can create a false sense of security. Teach children not to dive head first, instead they can jump into our arms. Dunking is never allowed.

  Learn CPR and first aid for young children. YouTube has many good videos of how to perform CPR on babies and young children. Pediatricians suggest showing them to baby sitters, refreshing, and practicing. 

  Double check that pools and spas have the proper drains that will not trap hair and loose clothing.  Empty a play pool when finished and turn it upside down.

   When you feel your children are ready, enroll them in Red Cross approved or university swim classes and keep taking them until they pass tests, then refresh skills. Make sure they know how to float and tread water. Have an extra flotation device handy and watch for signs of dangerous tides. Teach children to keep their head, hands, and feet inside boats.

  Accompany little ones to public bathrooms and outdoor portable bathrooms because older siblings may not be strong enough to hold little ones securely.  

Sports

Choose the Proper Gear for the Activity

  Encourage children to drink water before, during, and after active playtime.  Stick around to ensure a safe playing environment and enforcement of safety rules including well- fitting helmets and other gear.

 Cars

  Safety experts ask families never to leave children in the car while going shopping or doing other errands. Children get over heated, too cold, or enjoy pressing dangerous buttons and turning switches. 

Batteries and Tech

  Keep small electronics or devices especially those with small button batteries out of reach. Remote controls, musical greeting cards, and flameless candles are common hazards. Keep in mind that children are natural explorers and can climb unbelievable high. If you think a child has ingested any kind of battery to not induce vomiting. Take your child to the emergency room. The national battery hotline is 800- 498-8666.
  Families are watchful for small pieces that toddlers love to put into their mouths and possibly choke on. We sometimes forget that now scientists warn that families must be watchful for what toddlers are putting in their minds. Interacting with technology may be actually changing the functioning of their developing brains.  

For ten years a source of information for families: see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com; wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons live and podcasts, Facebook and Pinterest.

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Kids Love Cheap Easy Activities

Playing in Water is Fun & Teaching Time

Playing with water is a great way to have fun, increase vocabulary and teach.  Young children who read and do fun hands-on learning activities while talking to adults start school with about ten times as many words than children who don’t have these opportunities. 

Math and Science

  When the family heads to the beach for fun there can be  a little teaching, too. Take along different sized containers , a bucket, shovels, and plastic toys.  How many cups will fill a bucket?  How many buckets does it take to fill a hole in the sand? Where is the water going if  there is no exit stream? 

  Families can gather flat rocks on the beach and teach older children to skip them in the water.  Little children can throw a few stones in the water close to them.  Do bigger rocks make bigger splashes?  Why?

   Place some water in a container and start adding a few stones. Guess and count how many stones it takes before a container overflows. Gather natural items found on the beach and find out what floats and sinks.  Children also like to fill a small plastic boat- like container with rocks and estimate how many are needed to sink it.  You are teaching water displacement and volume which is a measure of the amount of space an object takes up.

  Children can make an outlet stream from their hole back to the lake. Now can they make a dam with sticks, stones, and mud?

  Speaking of mud, who can make the highest castle tower by drizzling mud through their fists?  This is a good technique for sugar sand that doesn’t pack well.

Water is Cheap Paint!

Paint and Wash with Water

  Water is a cheap paint, too. Young children love to paint with water and a small brush on colored paper or concrete. Provide a bucket and different kinds of paintbrushes. Together make the ABC’s, numbers, shapes, and draw pictures on the driveway. You can explain that the water molecules evaporate into the air.

 Children love to help clean bikes. They can use a hose or a thoroughly rinsed spray bottle filled with water.  Teach children how to spray and wipe with hand towels. They can also rinse off soap from your car and themselves on a hot day.

Indoor Water Fun

Water is Great Anywhere!!

  Water play is easy indoors, too.  Fill a dishpan or tub with water. Use plastic measuring cups to fill different containers.  Dolls, trucks and other toys can be washed with a little dish soap and a brush if you don’t plan to use the water for plants later. Give children straws to blow bubbles in the water or on their cupped hand. Estimate how many small toys are required to sink a container.

For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons live and podcasts.

 Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Kids Can Catch Fish in a Bottle

Looking For Minnows Is Fun! 

Young children often want to net tiny fish for pets. Since minnows are very fast and don’t like to get caught, it is probably all right to give children a small net to puddle around and chase these terrified fish. They can put it in a container of lake water with sea weed for a short time.

  Then it is time to prepare for release and have the talk about minnows needing to go back in the water to grow bigger. Fresh water minnows eat insects, such as mosquitoes and flies, as well as algae and pieces of dead plant and animal matter.

Creating Minnow Fun

 Children can make their own minnow habitat.  You’ll need a clean plastic bottle two or more liters with the labels removed, small balloons, a few small rocks, sand, something to look like weeds like a piece of plastic flower, and permanent marker.

  Discuss with your children what fresh water fish or ocean mammals like white beluga whales need to survive: clean water, and food.

Children can search for a few clean pebbles and place them at the bottom of the bottle and add some sand. Slowly fill the plastic bottle with tap water about two thirds full and let the sand settle.

Fish or Whales?

Fish or Whales??

 Decide what kind of fish or whales you are going to add to your water habitat. Balloons come in packages with a variety of different shapes and colors. Long narrow ones are good for whales. More circular ones are better for colorful puffy gold fish.

Talk about their characteristics. Children can add small scales and different colors. Hold off on adding eyes and mouth. Place some water into a small balloon through a funnel if you have one. The water should be heavy enough to sink the fish.  Then blow air into the balloon until it looks like a fish after you tie the end. Place the fish in its new habitat to find out which part of the balloon will be the top so you can correctly draw the eyes and mouth with a permanent marker. At least at the beginning the fish should be under water and not be belly up.  After a few months the fish may change positions as the air or water may seep out.

   

Take a Break and Look Around You

Now you can take a break with a book about fish and a few fish crackers.  Young children will have a pet fish to keep for a long time and another fun summer lake memory. Among many excellent books are ”Beluga Whales” by Victoria Blakemore and “About Fish by Cathryn Sill. 

For more activities see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/learning through the seasons live and podcasts.

 Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos