Education + Vegetables = Veggiecation Review and Giveaway

 

This is a review of the nutrition education program called Veggiecation.  After you read the review, and my request for you to act as a nation builder, you will have an opportunity to win a copy of Veggiecation's At Home program including I tried it stickers and a vegetable recipe book.
 
Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver would be tickled pink if every public and private elementary school had Veggiecation, a nutrition education program designed for PK-3rd graders.

Veggiecation is a curriculum based nutrition education program that makes it easy peasy for teachers to get kids falling in love with vegetables.  The lessons are standards based meaning it can be seamlessly incorporated into math, literacy, social studies, science and art curricula.  The hardest thing a teacher has to do with this program is to decide which persuasive literacy, measurement, geography or vocabulary lessons to take out, in order to find time in the day use vegetables as a vehicle for building literacy, math and science skills.

student language arts work

Should Teachers Have to Teach Math, Literacy, Science and The Love of Vegetables?
In a perfect world, every parent would teach the love of vegetables at home.  Schools used to teach home economics, and there was usually one member in each household who'd had some amount of nutrition education.  Home cooked meals used to be the norm and cooking skills were passed down to sons and daughters. How can a parent teach nutrition education if they never received it in a school or from their parents?

Our world isn't perfect.  Our world is turning out high school seniors who are  have heart disease are obese, or worse, diabetic.  Teachers who want to be nation builders should be teaching the love of vegetables, even if it makes their job even more demanding than it already is.  Schools feed children.  They need to get it right.

Just as literacy and math skills set kids up for success in their adult life, so do good eating habits.  Teach a child to eat real food, and they will have the health to utilize all those great literacy and math skills they acquire in elementary school from every hard-working grade-school teacher across our great nation.

Veggiecation is a tool your school could be using to instill good eating habits with kids. It's time for parents, teachers, schools and communities to all do their part to grow a generation of good eaters.

The Good Stuff

students casting ballots

The posters are beautiful, the program is comprehensive.    Kids get excited about seeing the posters, writing and reading about vegetables.  The recipes are easy and appealing to families.  The recipes empower mom and dad to reinforce at home what kids are learning in school.  Students love tasting and casting their ballot with their liked it or didn't like it decision.

Most of all, kids respond when you teach them why real food is relevant to them.  Vegetables help students learn and grow into thinking healthy bigger people.  Kids want to be thinking healthy big people.  Their response?  Kids eating vegetables. Kids liking vegetables.  Veggiecation is not a silver bullet.  It may not win all students over to all vegetables.  I would be very surprised if every student did not adopt just one new vegetable tolerance after going through this program.

ginger asparagus in tasting cup

The Possibly Not Good Stuff
Not all schools have cooking facilities available for teachers or staff to use.  That could make the recipe preparation, tasting and ballot box activities inaccessible.  I believe there would still be value in the program even for a campus who couldn't cook at school.  They might need parent volunteers who were willing to bring in prepared food.  Or they might nix the food prep piece entirely and focus on writing about vegetables and making vegetable patterns and other curricula based activities. 

Some public school administrators might be wary of food allergies and food safety that comes along with feeding kids in the classroom.  This will be an obstacle for some public schools, but hopefully with the right parent support, these obstacles can be overcome, and the program can be implemented with careful planning.

Skeptical?  Try it out at home, or in your school and see how kids react.  Here's what teachers get with the program.


The Veggiecation School Package  - click here for more details

ballot box data

• Lesson Plans with more than 20 lessons for literacy (language arts), math, social studies, science and art.  Veggie games are included.  Think vegetable Memory and Bingo.
• Membership to Veggiecation.com - access more activities, tools, nutrition tips and recipes for home.
• Veggie of the Month Posters - The bright veggie characters brighten up the classroom and create a buzz around the campus.  They really get kids talking and thinking about veggies. 
• Audio CD with Veggiecation theme song and dance.  Perfect for Health Fitness, Pre-K and K.
• Recipe book with 36 vegetable of the month recipes.
• I Tried it Stickers - Kids love getting recognition for their choices.  When they try a veggie, they get to wear an I tried it sticker.  Studies show that interventions like tastings increase fruit and vegetable consumption.
• Decision Ballot Box - Empowering a student to make a decision on whether they like or don't like a food item, gives them something to focus on other than misleading negative thoughts they may have about vegetables.  Instead of thinking 'I don't like squash" they are thinking "i will decide if I like it or not."  Teachers get a voting box, and voting card so each student can cast a ballot.  Just think of all the graphing a class could do with the ballot box data!

Veggiecation has at home programs for Parents and After-School 
Parent Teacher Association or Organization groups may want to recommend an after-school enrichment program on their campus.  Parents and grandparents may want to buy the Veggiecation At-Home products to get more veggies down the hatch at the dinner table. 

Do a nation builder task today
If you watched President Obama's state of the union speech you were probably touched by his call for teachers to be nation builders.  Teachers aren't the only folks who can build our great nation.  You can too.  Send a link to this program to your PTA president, your child's teacher, your school's principal, director or head.  Take action to grow a generation of good eaters.  Ask that Veggiecation be incorporated into the 2011-2012 school year as the school wide theme.  Don't stop if all you hear are objections.  Come here and let me know what "No" you heard and I will help you turn that into a "Yes."

Enter to Win a Copy of Veggiecation At Home
Two readers will receive: 

• one recipe book with 36 kid friendly recipes, 
• 2 activity books (think vegetable coloring pages), 
• Audio CD theme song with lyrics, and dance video,
• 3 complete sets of "I tried it stickers"
• click here for more details

To qualify for a chance to win leave a comment, include your email address and answer the following question

What is one veggie your kiddo loves to eat and one veggie your kiddo won't touch with a ten foot pole?

For an additional chances to win,
1) like Veggiecation on Facebook and tell me you do/did so in the comments.
2) "like" me on Facebook and tell me you do/did so in the comment section.
3) subscribe to my email or become a reader and tell me you do/did so in the comment section.
4) follow me on twitter and tell me you do/did so in the comments.
5) share the Veggiecation URL or the URL to this review on your FB page and tell me you did so in the comments.

The fine print
Only separate comment entries will be counted for extra entries. If you want more than one chance, leave more than one comment. The contest closes at midnight March 2nd , 2011. I will draw a winner and notify the winner via email. The winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize by responding to the email. Your email address should be in this format:  jenna AT foodwithkidappeal DOT com. 

Disclosure
I am a paid sales consultant for Veggiecation.  I did not receive any free products to conduct this review.  The opinions here are my own, I was not compensated for the review.  I agreed to do the review before I was hired by Veggiecation.  Lisa at Veggiecation donated a school package to Sherwood Elementary as a prize to the Second Grade Teaching team for winning the Taste-Off Competition.