Exploring Food Literacy for Daycare Week

English Montreal School Board B.A.S.E. (Before and After School Enriched) Daycare students will be celebrating Daycare Week from May 14 to 18 and beyond with cooking and gardening events across 13 daycares.

Fuelling passion for the environment, food and sustainable food practices in elementary school students is an everyday occurrence in the B.A.S.E. Daycare programming. B.A.S.E. Daycares will be hosting Food Revolution Day inspired celebrations for the third year in a row at three schools (General Vanier, John Caboto Academy and Our Lady of Pompei) as well as a “Garden Blitz” of activities, from seedling sales to planting days, at 10 others.

These celebrations highlight a year of environmental learning as well as the theme of this year’s Daycare Week from the Association québécoise de la garde scolaire (AQGS):

“LET’S RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COMPLEMENTARY ROLE OF SCHOOL DAYCARES IN THE SCHOOL TEAM!”

The Food Revolution events will consist of Cooking Club students running various activities for their fellow daycare students. There will be stations for the courageous—a “Blind Taste Test” and a “Whipping Cream Race and Dunk Tank Challenge” —and more culinary and art inspired stations where students can create edible art or build their own meals.

Garden Blitz activities will be hosted by the B.A.S.E. Daycare Green Clubs raising money for their garden programming through Seedling Sales and hosting fun planting day games and activities with fellow students and parents to help get their schoolyard gardens started for the summer. Parents and students can also sign up (http://bit.ly/2IxV8QR ) to help maintain the gardens in the summertime.

Schedule of Activities:

The B.A.S.E. Daycare program has been implementing activities related to food literacy, from gardening to cooking, for many years and boasts the presence of a Montreal Food Revolution Ambassador in its Professional Development Officer for Environmental Education, Melina Trimarchi. The Food Revolution is a movement led by chef Jamie Oliver that aims “to provoke debate and inspire real, meaningful, positive change in the way our children access, consume and understand food.” Food Revolution Day is a global day of action to put food education back on the school curriculum.