Healthy Living
At Footprints we are devoted to making sure our children shine in all areas of development. One of these key factors is being healthy, we do this by keeping active and eating healthy. We do lots of fun activities which we hope you can incorporate and promote at home!
Get Active
Stretch-n-Grow
Once a week our Preschool and Tots children have “Stretch-n-Grow”; an outdoor topic based physical education lesson with all genres of music conducted by a fully trained instructor. The children learn about the benefits of being active, where our muscles are, the names of our muscles and how to have fun while being active. You can find out more here: www.stretch-n-grow.co.uk
Outdoor Spaces
We take the indoors outdoors everyday within our nurseries. Our large natural outdoor environments are equipped with garden chests that are bursting with exciting outdoor resources including weather boxes, role play boxes, community block play, chalk boards, parachutes, balls and hoops. We also have balance bikes at both our nurseries to help children learn the first steps of cycling.
We have plenty of space to investigate the natural world with our grassy areas and plenty of soil! We often use community parks in Macclesfield and Bollington to the best of our ability by taking our resources and children so we can make our own sports day activities.
Climbing and Balancing
We have wonderful and newly renovated outdoor areas that consists of various pieces of climbing equipment, tyres, balance bikes etc. that our children can learn to balance on, climb on and be imaginative with, by making dens and creating great hiding places.
Healthy Eating
Organic Food
Where ever possible we grow our own fruit and vegetables and use these in our menus – you’ll be surprised how many children that don’t like potatoes love them once they’ve planted them, dug them up, washed them, handed them to our chefs and then found them on their plate!
Fruit and Water
Fruit and water is accessible to all our children at all times throughout the day. Starting in the Toddler Room, children can help themselves to their cups of water from the fridge and as our children grow in confidence they are eventually able to pour their own water and help themselves to a piece of fruit.
Menus
Our menus are based on a four weekly rota providing our children with a range of nutritional food cooked in our kitchen by our fully qualified and experienced chefs.
Variation
We always encourage children at our nurseries to try a variety of different foods, including different meat and vegetarian dishes, as well as food from around the world.
Children are also taught where their food comes from and how it’s grown to encourage engagement and interest in the foods they’re eating.
