Teaching Kids About Healthy Breakfast with Literature #JennieO4Kids

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Teaching Kids About Healthy Breakfast with Literature #JennieO4Kids

Each week at school we have a book for the week. We read it everyday and do an activity that goes along with it. Last week we read one of my favorite books, If You Give a Pig a Pancake. My love for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie extends to all of the books by Laura Numeroff. The kids love them too! My teaching partner and I took advantage of the book to give our students sensory experiences and teach them about eating a healthy breakfast!

We enjoyed painting with pancake batter, making a paper plate craft breakfast, making and eating breakfast foods, and making a graph of the foods we like. Some of our students are very picky eaters but it offered us a great chance to introduce them to the variety of foods that go into a healthy breakfast.

After putting together a great breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and fruit with my class, I decided to bring the book home to my own toddler!

Making Healthy Breakfast Swaps

One of my favorite ways of to make our meals a bit healthier is by making little swaps. Jennie-O ground turkey is one of my favorite swaps. We rarely use ground beef these days and everyone loves my chili and spaghetti as much as they always have! So I figured it was time to make a breakfast swap.

I love a good BLT sandwich made with turkey bacon. So when I headed out to Walmart to pick up some Jennie-O turkey bacon for our breakfast at school and a breakfast at home for W. If you think you eating healthier means spending more, it’s just not true! I actually save money buying Jennie-products!

And as a busy mom, I love anything that makes meals my family loves a bit healthier. The nutrition facts on the back of the packages don’t lie! I love saving on fat and calories while still getting a punch of protein to start the day. And I love passing it on to my family. The younger I start teaching W healthy eating habits, the more successful he will be!

Teaching Healthy Breakfast Habits

So with a fun children’s book in hand, we explored what might happen when you give a pig a pancake. And then I set out to make a healthier pancake breakfast for my family. Using Jennie-O turkey bacon instead of regular bacon was my first step. Substituting fresh fruit for a side like hash browns was the nest step. And my last step was to make sure that I served an appropriate portion of heart healthy pancakes.

Pancakes don’t have to be a bad breakfast option as long as the portion is appropriate. J loves to eat a huge stack of pancakes. I think I’ve seen the man eat 15 pancakes in one sitting. But 3 pancakes is a serving according to the pancake mix. So we stuck with that. Combined with 3 strips of turkey bacon and fruit, we had a filling breakfast for under 400 calories! It had less than 10 grams of fat too. Yet, tasted like a delectable splurge!

While I encourage my students at school to make healthy choices in the cafeteria and my son to eat healthy at home, sometimes mom has to make something that feels like a splurge. But with Jennie-O, those special family meals can be as healthy as others!

Did the kids enjoy turkey bacon with their pancakes? They sure did! And they had fun eating pancakes like the pig in the book! And as a teacher, I love how a healthy breakfast helps my students stayed focused on their work throughout our time together. It helps them stay awake. Trust me, I can tell when one of my kids hasn’t had breakfast! It makes for a challenging day!

Champions for Kids

I was thrilled to teach my students about eating a healthy breakfast as part of  the Champions for Kids simple service project with Jennie-O. It’s all about giving breakfast a wake-up call for kids in your community. The kids at my school are my passion and I want the best for all of them. Helping give them a great start to each day is something I would love to do every single day!

I encourage you to give breakfast a wake-up call and cook a nutritious breakfast for kids in your community! If you need recipe ideas, check out the Jennie-O Champions for Kids page for some great ideas! You can also connect with Jennie-O on Facebook and on Twitter @SwitchToTurkey.

Who would you make a nutritious breakfast for in your community?

Formula Mom Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias®  and Jennie-O. All experiences and opinions are 100% my own. #cbias #SocialFabric

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