Dilly Days with Beth and Joellyn: Authors of The InvestiGator Club™ for Robert-Leslie Publishing

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Here’s one last snack idea for you, and it is the easiest of them all!

Chilly Willy Grapes
Freeze seedless grapes. Take them from the freezer, and eat them while they’re still frosty cold! Yum.

Here’s a fun Dramatic Play Learning Center activity from The InvestiGator Club Prekindergarten Learning System that you can complete with your children.
 

Fruit Smoothie
You’ll need:

• 1/2 cup of your favorite fruit
• 3/4 cup of fat free, sugar free, vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup ice

1. Cut the fruit into small pieces.
2. Put all of the ingredients in a blender and puree.

In honor of American Heart Month, I wanted to share over the next few days a couple of snack ideas that are heart-healthy and fun to make. We’d love to hear about your favorite healthful snacks, too!

Trail Mix
Set out small dishes with the following items:

• raisins, peanuts (pecans, pine nuts, almonds or pistachios)
• banana chips
• pretzels
• carob chips
• dried pineapple chunks.

Let each child:

1. Scoop 1 tablespoon of each item into his or her own small plastic bag.
2. Zip the bag shut and gently turn it upside down to mix the ingredients.

Let children experiment with the ingredients to make a Trail Mix recipe that tastes especially good to them.

February 14th is just about here. Is your classroom decorated with bright red hearts for Valentine’s Day? Are you having your preschoolers make heart-shaped cards? Perhaps you are planning a Valentine’s Day party with all kinds of tasty heart-shaped treats. No matter how you celebrate the holiday with your preschoolers, it’s also a great time to talk about the human heart, because February is also American Heart Month.

You can start by sharing with children that the human heart does not look like a Valentine’s heart but more like a pear that’s about the size of your fist. Here are some other facts to know and share:

• The heart is a muscle that looks like red meat. That’s because it is supplied with lots of blood.
• The heart is actually in the center of your chest between the lungs, not on the left side.
• The heart is a two-sided pump—left and right—made up of four parts called chambers (right and left atrium and right and left ventricle). One-way valves keep blood flowing in the correct direction. (The right side of the heart receives blood from the body and sends it to the lungs; the left side receives oxygen-enriched blood from the lungs and pumps it throughout the body.)
• The thumping heart beat sound you hear is made by the valves as they close.
• The heart beats about 100,000 times a day, pumping blood to all parts the body (organs, tissues, and cells) through a network of blood vessels (arteries, veins, capillaries). If the vessels were placed end to end, they’d extend about 60,000 miles. That’s about two and a half times around Earth!
• The heart is designed to last a long time. You can help your heart by exercising and eating healthful foods.