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Let’s GO!

1. Setting: Place the mattresses on the floor and form a Flying Chess board. Put the pictures of breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as the dice on the mattresses.

2. The teacher starts the activity by telling the story ‘Ching Ching and Liang Liang’. He/she asks the class to think about the adverse effects of eating irregularly, such as losing appetite for meals and higher chances of tooth decay.

3. Children become the chessmen. They take turns to throw the dice at the starting point. If they get ‘breakfast’ in three dice rolls, they can move forward.

4. When a child gets the ‘breakfast - 8 a.m.’ face, he/she has to put on the coloured strap and clip the breakfast medal on the strap. Then he/she has to crawl to the lunch mattress and throw the dice. They will have to get a ‘lunch’ face and so on.

5. Once the child arrives at the destination, he/she has to shout the slogan: ‘I am a healthy kid and eat regularly’ with creative gestures.

Dinner Medal

Snack medal

Breakfastmedal

Lunchmedal

Have lunch at noon

Have breakfastat 8:00am

Children at the starting point need to roll the“Breakfast Dice” before setting off.

Craw

lHop or jump over the mat.

Have snackat 4:00pm

Ending pointAfter arriving the ending point, say the slogan:

“I’m a healthy kid and eat regularly!”

Starting point

Put the hoop

through the b

ody

Following

instructions for moving

forward

s, such as crawling

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Ching Chung Hing TungKindergarten

Train your children withphysical exercises and healthy eating

Stage 1 : Introduction

To maintain a healthy life, an appropriate eating habit is essential.

Therefore, children should have regular and balanced diet.

Punctual meals and refreshments are conducive to the proper

absorption of nutrients; if we skip meals, we will be starved and

then we will overeat later. Eating too frequently is also a problem;

it may cause tooth decay. Children should learn that punctuality

and a regular lifestyle are equally important.

In order to supply children with sufficient energy and nutrients, we

should give them breakfast, lunch and dinner at an interval of 4 to

6 hours. Between meals, refreshment can only be provided once

and should be at least 1.5 to 2 hours away from meals. Also, meals

and refreshments should be complementary in terms of variety

and quantity; this is to ensure an adequate supply of nutrients.

Ching Chung Hing Tung Kindergarten has been teaching a

‘healthy campus’ curriculum. With the implementation of the

StartSmart@school.hk Pilot Project, the original curriculum was

merged with other class activities which in turn brought about a

greater learning outcome. The school designed a creative chess

game to teach children the importance of regular diet. The game

helped them practise a healthy diet and trained their motor

coordination at the same time.

《Omni-Directional Chess Game》

Ching Chung Hing TungKindergarten Stage 2 : Start Smart!

Live : Regular Diet Chess Objective : Children learn how often they should eat

so as to attain a regular diet. In the physical activity, children are instructed to do certain actions such as hopping or jumping, climbing, crawling through a hula hoop, etc. These body movements train the motor coordination of children’s major and minor muscles.

Time : 30 minutesMaterials : 36 pieces of soft mattresses (topped with

pictures of breakfast, lunch and dinner), a dice (each face indicating a time and what we eat by then, e.g. 8 a.m - breakfast), a plastic basket, coloured straps, ‘food medals’, hula hoops, a music CD, and a CD player.

Ms. Lee Lin FanTeacher

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Stage 3 : Sharing Platform• Although there was a ‘Healthy Campus’ curriculum in place

within our school, the addition of StartSmart@school.hk Pilot

Project sophisticated our teaching in this aspect. We used to

think it would be adequate so long as we paid attention to

nutrition; the project made us realise that physical activity is

equally important and that the two are in fact complementary in

nature.

• As a paticipating school of the pilot project, we benefited a lot. If

the project is to be launched territory-wide, we will be a devote

supporter for this initiative.

• Kids found it hard to manage the concept of time. Therefore, we

first carried out the chess game in class K3; the result was good.

Pupils were enthusiastic in the activity and they learnt more

about regular diet.

• We discovered that some parents were not concerned about

children’s breakfast. Some children even skipped breakfast

when they woke up late or when they were in a hurry for school.

We hope to instil the message of punctual eating into our pupils.

We hope the parents will get the messages and information,

whether they are available in pamphlets or other formats.

• Story-telling was effective in getting the message of punctual

eating across to children. Now they watch the time at home and

tell their parents when they should eat. As a result, the dietary

habit of the entire family has improved gradually and meals are

served on time.

Ching Chung Hing TungKindergarten

Reflection: Ancillary Measures and Parent-school Cooperation

1. Learning amid activities : As the chess game showed the recommended times for

meals, the children might think about whether they observed these meal times at home. The picture story showed the adverse effects of an irregular diet to health.

2. Improve the competition system : To speed up the game, teachers agreed to abandon the

use of dice. Pupils took turns to participate so as to save time queuing up to throw the dice. A ‘Snack Wall’ could be built along the two sides of the mattresses; children would then wear elbow guards with Velcro fasteners, and try to avoid contact with the unhealthy snacks on the wall while crawling through the tunnel.

3. Cooperation : Children actively assisted each other in the game, thus

being trained to cooperate with each other.

4. Creativity : Children’s creativity was engaged as they had to make up

a gesture for themselves when they shouted the slogan by the end of the activity.

5. Healthy birthday party : Apart from providing the imaginative chess game, the

school also introduced healthy diet topics in the usual classroom activities. For example, cream cakes and party snacks were replaced by sponge cakes and fresh fruits at birthday parties. Teachers also made healthy food together with the pupils.

6. Parent-child interaction : The school invited parents to physical activity events like

game workshops and sports galas. These events improved family ties as well as children’s health.

7. Active family participation : The school organised parent-child activities, including

nutrition talks, visits to farms and vegetable markets, healthy snack making, etc. The activities improved parents’ understanding of nutrition and helped them pave way for their children’s healthy eating habit.

Ms. Chan Shuk WaiHeadmistress

Ms. Chu Siu MeiTeacher

After the StartSmart@school.hk Pilot Project, the entire school, including the headmistress, the teachers and the food preparation staff, found themselves benefited. They have known more about food and nutrition; they have learnt more about how to organise physical activities for children. Such information is useful in future teaching. As for children, the pilot project reinforced their understanding of a healthy life, which laid a good foundation for their future learning.

Conclusion