AmeriCorps Service Story: Encouraging Kindergarteners to love vegetables

Erin, one of our AmeriCorps Members shared this story:

Throughout the winter months, the other Common Threads AmeriCorps service members and I shifted our educational focus from the dormant school gardens to the other end of the Seed-to-table chain, the kitchen. Over the course of the winter, we researched, developed, and implemented a pilot “Cooking in the Classroom” program at four Title 1 elementary schools in Bellingham, with the goal of empowering kids to be adventurous (and healthy eaters).

When I started our winter cooking curriculum, I believed that success meant that students would be willing to try the Rainbow Salad, Veggie Sushi, and Zucchini Linguini that we cooked and ate together in the classroom. Each week, we meticulously prepared for our classes, a lengthy process that included grocery shopping, devising the best way to divide recipes into enough tasks so that all students had a chance to participate, and packing our rolling cooking carts with all of our supplies.

The response was more than I could have hoped for! Not only did most of the students love eating their “homecooked” snacks, but they clamored for more. I had one particular kindergarten student who typically stayed as far away from vegetables as possible. Not only did he gobble up the Rainbow Salad he and his classmates made, his mother told us that he insisted that they make the recipe at home. She thanked us profusely for encouraging her son to like and eat salad. Hopefully he grows to love other vegetables too! This story, and many others like it, shows that kids will make healthy choices when given the chance. We empowered them to believe they could cook and eat healthy food, and that kindergartener took matters into his own hands. He didn’t just eat salad in class, he eats salad whenever he has the chance.