Fast Food Fun

One of the joys of working at Eureka! is delivering our amazing interactive educational workshops. Throughout the year I might find myself taking the children on all manner of incredible adventures; from flying off to the planet Kaygool with aliens (I’m one of them) to sailing aboard the ‘The Black Light’ with pirates (me again) to search for treasure. At the moment we’re concentrating on the very current topic of healthy lifestyles with two workshops; Fast Food Fun for 7-11 year olds and Fruit for Thought for the 5-7 year olds.

Watch a video of the Fast Food Fun workshop

At the end of every ‘Fast Food Fun’ workshop I ask the children two questions. The first question is always “have you enjoyed the workshop?” - A question that is invariably answered with a very enthusiastic “YES!” The second question; or to be more accurate set of three questions, are aimed at finding out if they think they’ve learned anything. A unanimous positive response tells me that all the learning objectives have been achieved; and what’s more, the response from the children is just as enthusiastic when faced with these questions as it was to the first. That’s what it’s all about for me and it’s what I love about Eureka!; play and learning are not put in separate categories, play is learning and learning is fun.

I think ‘Fast Food Fun’ is a brilliant way of putting across the healthy lifestyle message. From the moment the children set eyes on Jogger Jill (my alter ego) in her over the top sports gear; complete with jazzy pink leg warmers and ‘bad hair day’ headband, they know they’re here to have fun. I love to see the excitement on their faces as they compete in teams to pick up the little bags of food energy (beanbags) and balance them on their heads, or dodge the beanbags on their way to the supermarket to pick up something from the carbohydrate, fat or protein food groups. All the games are great fun and most of them are pretty active too so we don’t just talk about the value of exercise, we actually do exercise at the same time! Anybody who doesn’t believe in the learning through play philosophy should come along and watch. In what other situation could you get a whole class of 7-8 year olds sitting, totally engaged as they listen to somebody talking about simple and complex carbohydrates and saturated and unsaturated fats – and what’s more, actually understanding the differences and working out which would be the healthier choice.

Every workshop is different because every group of children is different and that makes them as much fun for me as it is for them. (Maybe next time I blog I’ll include a few examples of ‘children say the funniest things’ and you’ll see what I mean). Until then always remember – “adults don’t stop playing because they get old, they get old because they stop playing” Hopefully, thanks to Eureka!, I’ll never get old!

Jill Ward is an Enabler in the Front of House team at Eureka!