Nourishing our Futures: Exploring Food Together
Working towards the Nourishing Our Futures Award
Helping children develop a positive relationship with food is an important part of their early years. At Wivenhoe Park Day Nursery, our Colchester nursery on the University of Essex campus, we encourage children to explore different foods at their own pace. Most importantly, we do this without pressure.
As part of this work, our kitchen chefs, Annie and Maxine, recently attended training in Chelmsford. The training will support the nursery as we work towards the Nourishing Our Futures Award.
The programme focuses on food and nutrition in early years settings. Annie and Maxine have already shared what they learnt with our wider staff team. We are pleased to be making positive progress towards achieving the award.
Exploring food through the senses
Our staff also recently took part in a training session with Colette from TastEd. During the session, they learnt more about sensory food education and discovered new ideas for food-based activities.
TastEd encourages children to explore food through its appearance, smell, texture and taste. Two of its key messages are:
- You don’t have to try it.
- You don’t have to like it.
These simple messages help create a calm and pressure-free environment. As a result, children can become familiar with different foods and decide what they feel comfortable exploring.
Our pre-school children have now started taking part in TastEd sessions at the nursery. These activities encourage them to investigate and talk about food in a positive and engaging way. Over time, the sessions can also help children build confidence around unfamiliar foods.
Supporting families at home
We know that encouraging children to try different foods can sometimes be challenging. By working together with families, we hope to make mealtimes positive both at the nursery and at home.
You can find further information at reception. This includes details about the foods we offer and how we create positive mealtime experiences. There are also ideas for responding to food refusal at home.
