Ideas For Classroom

[hapy4dolphins]

HI, I've been thinking about doing a celiac presentation in my daughters class. She keeps asking if I will do something along those lines. I wrote a note to the teacher and she said she could incorporate it into a health lesson they will do coming up. Anyone have any ideas for this?

Nicole

[Nantzie]

For my daughter's preschool class the teacher used a book called Eating Gluten-Free with Emily -- Open Original Shared Link .com/Eating-Gluten-Free-E...8535495-7930438

After they read the book the kids totally got it, and it wasn't a big deal.

Nancy

[gfp]

IMHO I would try and cover food intolerances not just celiac....

My reasoning is twofold.... firstly you reassertain that your daughter is "normal" food intolerances are very common... so she is not classed as "different"....

Secondly you stand to help more people....

You can then zoom in on celiac as the one you are familiar with and give more details ...

[RIMom]

I haven't done one yet, but my friend whose daughter has a nut allergy just did one in my daughter's second grade class. She brought in lots of food product packages and after explaining the allergy, she taught them to read labels and had them hunt for which ones were safe and which were not. The kids loved the "hunt" and my daughter now knows how to read labels. She is not celiac, but her 4 year old sister is, and it's already proven helpful for her to read labels and know what to look for to warn her sister. (of course I would never not read them to confirm a food's safety or not). This has made the process much more real for her as well. And as for her nut allergy friend, my daughter constantly reads labels, not wanting to "hurt" her friend by bringing something that has nuts in it (even though it is not a nut free school).

Enjoy....

[hapy4dolphins]

These are all good ideas. Thank you.

[gfgypsyqueen]

Are second graders old enough to do a science experiment? i.e., use something like a shag carpet that is highly absorbent and something flat and not very absorbent. LIne the inside of a tube with each and see which one absorbs more. Idea is to show how little nutrients are absorbed during a gluten reaction.

Maybe this idea is beyond 2nd graders? I do like the idea of teaching the kids how to read labels. I feel the more people who know how to keep your kid safe, the better off your kid is going to be.

[bbuster]

HI, I've been thinking about doing a celiac presentation in my daughters class. She keeps asking if I will do something along those lines. I wrote a note to the teacher and she said she could incorporate it into a health lesson they will do coming up. Anyone have any ideas for this?

Nicole

My daughter in 3rd grade did a science fair project entitled "Gluten or Not" and won a prize. She gave a little background that gluten comes from wheat, barley, rye and oats. She made chocolate chip cookies with and without gluten, and had everyone in her class sample one of each and see if they could tell which was gluten-free by looking, touching, and tasting each cookie. She also asked each student which cookie they liked better. She then tallied and presented the results.

The results were that most people could not tell the difference (in fact most guessed wrong) and most preferred the gluten-free cookie.

So two key lessons here:

1) you can't tell if something has gluten just by looking (thus - careful label reading)

2) gluten-free products can taste great (the normalcy factor)

My son has Celiac and my daughter does not, but for her last birthday treats to bring to school, she requested gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and brownies - and the class and teachers LOVED them.