Why it is important to us

As more children spend time in care, early childhood settings can play an important part in supporting healthy choices around nutrition and physical activity. We make play a priority and our educators love to be involved in your child’s play, encouraging them to be physically active.

At PELC we want to empower children to understand the importance of a healthy eating, physical activity and hygiene. We use our environment and responsive teaching to encourage children to eat to their own appetites, develop positive attitudes towards selecting food, and enjoy eating.

Meals

We meet your child’s daily nutrition requirements by serving foods from the basic food groups, providing the nutrients essential for life and growth. These foods may also be called ‘everyday foods’. Each of these food groups provides a range of nutrients and play a variety roles in helping the body function. In particular, vegetables, legumes and fruit protect against illness and are essential to a healthy diet. All meals and snacks are prepared in the service by our chef, ensuring your little love has five fresh meals daily. Additionally, we provide children with water and milk throughout the day.

Independent and confident learners

Our curriculum, environment and routines empower children to make choices and feel confident. Meal and snack times provide an opportunity for children to develop good eating behaviours, enjoy eating, learn about nutrition, and learn about different varieties of foods. They are also a good time for social interaction. Meals are served at the table in ways that allow children to help themselves and decide how much they will eat. Making serving platters, bowls and utensils available and accessible encourages children to serve themselves. This helps them develop coordination, as well as skills such as pouring, serving and passing.

We use responsive teaching strategies during meal times to encourage children to use these times to talk with each other and to share information about nutrition and healthy eating. Children can also develop language and communication skills through talking with adults and peers. Our staff support children to identify various textures and tastes appropriate to their age.

We practice school readiness in everything we do

We enhance our transition to school program by embedding practices into our curriculum and routines such as crunch & sip and bring your lunch box to school week at the start of each month from mid-year. These opportunities allow us to work in partnership with you to get your child ready for school, through open ended conversations and routines that will improve wellbeing from early years.