After much preparation and anticipation, the first week of CHFFF Lessons went really well! We met at PAL Harlem on Monday for Lesson 1: Rethink Your Drink. Henry came prepared with sticky notes in his CHFFF book to help him lead the lesson. Meeting the students was worth the wait– our 3rd and 4th graders are inquisitive, knowledgeable, and mostly well-behaved! I will never forget how when Henry started to say why we need to drink so much water one student raised their hand to remark that over 70% of the body is made up of water, which was the exact fact Henry was about to share! They also had a lot of opinions about the different “Stop,” “Slow,” and “Go” drinks which was exactly what we were hoping for; it is much more fun to have a group of engaged and eager students, even if they are a little rowdy, than an uninterested group. While realizing half way through the first session of Lesson 1 that we didn’t have cups for the Water with a Twist recipe was a bit of a setback, Miriam saved the day by quickly locating some cups in PAL.
Lesson 2 on Wednesday also went well but was a bit more difficult because the lesson location was moved to the cafeteria. Although this made the food preparation and demonstration easier, it was very loud in the room especially from a class being taught next door and so it was hard to get the students to follow along. Me, Henry, and Sashana made it work to the best of our abilities by moving closer to the kids to teach and having them stand around the food prep table during the recipe, but fortunately we will be moved back to our initial classroom space next week. Almost all of the kids were willing to try the recipe (Black Bean Salad) even though it had a lot of vegetables so it was a success! I really did appreciate how excited the kids were for the recipe and it made me look forward to next week.
