Building Healthy Habits with Sesame Street in Communities

Building Healthy Habits with Sesame in Communities

Nydia Ntouda: On today's webinar, we have Antonio Freitas joining us. He will officially introduce himself. Antonio.

Antonio Freitas: Happy Thursday to all of our friends here. Far and wide across the webinar chat and coming into this space right now. My name is Antonio Freitas. As the director of Educational Experiences here at the Sesame Workshop, I'm excited to connect with you all today and talk and share about some of the things that make communities smarter, stronger, and kinder.

We all know that children and families deserve healthy, nutritious food and that all families can be empowered to make healthy choices together. Sesame Workshop has created a new suite of resources to support children and families in developing healthy relationships with food, plus some strategies for planning and making easy, budget-friendly meals and snacks. These newly updated eating well topic page resources include resources in both English and Spanish.

To ground all this work in some consistency, we know that routines are key to keeping people healthy. Everyday routines are building blocks for learning healthy habits and reaching developmental milestones. Things like brushing teeth, washing hands, eating well, and even exercising everyday help everyone grow and thrive.

Every so often routines, like doctor and dentist checkups, make sure that families have the support, the information, and the care that they need to help kids stay healthy. This webinar will highlight how Head Start programs can use resources from our Health and Hygiene, Eating Well, and Moving Our Bodies topic pages with children and families.

This webinar will be offered simultaneously in English and in Spanish. Our goal is threefold. First, to study the lessons children can learn through daily routines that support their health and well-being, to explore resources from that topic page on healthy habits for all, and to think about and explore strategies to embed these resources into your work and play with everyone in the neighborhood.Before we start, we want to ground ourselves with a quick moment of Muppet Mindfulness. We're going to take a moment to share a video with Cookie and his focus on a sometimes food, his favorite meal cookies.

[Video begins]

Cookie Monster: Monster Meditation.

Andy: With Cookie Monster and me, Andy.

Cookie Monster: Ha ha.

[Timer ticking]

Cookie Monster: Uh.

Andy: Hello, Cookie Monster.

Cookie Monster: Huh? Oh, it me friend, Andy. Hi, Andy.

Andy: I see you're baking some cookies. Mm, smells good.

Cookie Monster: Yeah, but they're not ready. Why cookies take so long to bake?

Andy: Yeah, it can be hard to wait for something you really, really want. Hey, you want to play a fun Monster Meditation while we wait?

Cookie Monster: Oh, what meditation? So, it's an activity that can make waiting more fun.

Cookie Monster: Oh, boy! Follow along and do Monster Meditation with me and Andy.

Andy: Great. So, we're going to play I sense, a game of I Spy but with our five senses.

Cookie Monster: Oh, me know those. [Sniffs] Sense of smell, hearing, touch, taste, and sight.

Andy: Exactly. Now, can you spy something with your sense of smell?

Cookie Monster: Me smell with me little nose, cookies. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Ah!

Andy: Wait, Cookie Monster. The cookies still aren't ready. Let's pass the time by playing this game. But before we do, we're going to focus ourselves by doing some belly breaths. So put your hands on your belly. Now, take a slow deep breath in, and slowly breathe out.

Cookie Monster: [Exhales]

Andy: Great job. Now, that we've focused, can you spy something with your sense of smell?

Cookie Monster: Me smell with me little nose, strawberries.

Andy: [Laughter] Strawberries?

Cookie Monster: Oh yeah, it me strawberry monster shampoo. Me had bubble bath today.

Andy: So with that smell in your nose, can you spy something with your sense of touch?

Cookie Monster: Hey, me fur. It's soft and fluffy.

Andy: Now with that softness in your mind, Cookie Monster, can you spy something with your eyes?

Cookie Monster: Me by with me little eye, you! Me friends at home. Hi.

Andy: Wonderful. Now while focusing on your friends, can you spy something with your sense of hearing?

Cookie Monster: Me hear, me hear loud ringing. Andy, can you answer your phone please. Me trying to monster meditate.

Andy: Um, Cookie Monster, that's the timer. Your cookies are ready.

Cookie Monster: Cookies! Oh boy, you almost forgot.

Andy: See, by focusing on your senses, you forgot all about waiting for your cookies to bake. And you still have one sense left.

Cookie Monster: Me do?

Andy: Yes. Your sense of taste.

Cookie Monster: [Gasps] Cookie!

[Chomping]

Meditation fun and delicious. Ah.

[Video ends]

Antonio: It's a fun way to ground us, but that sometimes what Cookie has brought us into the conversation about what it means to be healthy, to be in connection with who we are, the foods that we eat, and the communities and bodies that we inhabit.

As we mentioned at the top of this conversation, My job as Antonio Freitas, as the director of Educational Experiences, is to build a lot of the content that we're going to be walking through today, and to think about how we use it in professional contexts with Head Start staff with the providers across the United States.

You know a little bit about me but take a moment and use the poll that's going to be reflected on your screen to let us know how you identify coming into this space. I've seen, and special shout out to so many of you that put into the webinar... Your names, the spaces that you're coming from, and your excitement and coming into this conversation. We're so excited to have you and to learn from you in this space.

Overwhelmingly, we have 56% of the people in this space identifying as Head Start staff, with the second runners up being Head Start leadership, and other members of the group, including T and TA providers, caregivers, and extra consultants, and some other people. We're again excited to have you. We know that Sesame Street brings all the friends into spaces where we share and exchange best practices.

Use our time together for these next 50 minutes to be informal, relaxed, and fun. I'm going to be sharing a lot of resources. I encourage you to also put into the webinar questions, comments, or best practices on how you might use some of these same resources with children, families, and staff that you work with.The trauma that we experienced directly impacts our overall health outcomes. In addition to this, we also think about the conditions of the environments where we live, where we learn, where we work, and where we play.

When we think about health, we often think of our genetics and our physical health. But 80% of our overall health outcomes are actually driven by such things as our physical environment, social and economic factors, and our health behaviors. Many of these behaviors and factors are considered our social determinants of health.

These SDOH or Social Determinants of Health have been defined as conditions where people in the places that they live in can be under five different categories: economic stability, which includes things like poverty, employment, food security, and housing stability, education access and quality that includes things like language and literacy, high school graduation, higher education, and even early childhood education development.

It also includes health care access and quality. That availability of us to get into primary care, and having health literacy to navigate those systems. It also includes neighborhood and built environment, things like the quality of housing, the crime and violence of our neighborhoods, and even environmental conditions. Finally, the social and community context that we live in. That social cohesion, the civic participation, the perceptions of equity and discrimination, as well as incarceration or institutionalization.

The Head Start community has an opportunity to strengthen protective factors of those we serve to positively make an impact on these social determinants of health and move us toward that ultimate goal, which is health equity.In Head Start, we have that opportunity to address these things by being at health equity intervention. In doing this, we're designing programs that help reduce health disparities, eliminate barriers, and provide a healthy foundation to ensure children enter school, ready to succeed, and life ready to thrive.

It's not possible to do this work without having resources and supports to talk about racism, health, and all those other adverse childhood experiences that impact our work and our lives as we continue to grow. Today, our goal is to highlight resources from Sesame Street in Communities that can be used as a tool to increase your capacity to support programs and other people in your staffs, communities, and classrooms to meet these goals. We're going to be able to do this by exploring some of the different contexts connected to Sesame Street in Communities.

Sesame Street in Communities was created under this assumption that we need to and have a duty to respond to the children and to the families in our care. We know that nearly half of the American children under the age of 18, that's 35 million children, have been through at least one adverse childhood experience like parental addiction, community violence, or even divorce, with more than one third of those children under the age of five.But we at Sesame Street, like you, in Head Start also know that simple strategies can make a difference in mitigating the effects of some of these traumatic experiences.

We're learning that the more that we help everyone in the neighborhood take small steps, the more that we can increase the chances of successful outcomes for children in school and in life.The way that we do this in Sesame Street in Communities is through a three-pronged approach that reaches communities and children in spaces and channels that we traditionally have not been able to access. This includes an online content hub.

This curated collection of the best of our community engagement work created over decades with new content updated monthly.It also includes professional development resources, things like webinars, training videos, and courses that help other staff members help and meet the needs of everyone in their community. Finally, implementation partners like all of you that continue to embed into the work and fold up programming you're already doing some of these resources in the ways that you talk and engage with children and their families.

Sesame Street in Communities offers parents, providers, and community organizations shared messaging, shareable content, and simple strategies for the lives of children and families. In a moment, I'm going to ask you to watch a clip that give you a better sense of what Sesame Street in Communities is all about. As you do, I'm going to encourage you to put into the chat window maybe building a connection about what you see happening in the video and what you are doing in your day-to-day life and work with others.

[Video begins]

[Music playing]

Narrator: All children deserve to grow and play and learn free from stress or fear. But most, at some point, will need help coping with difficult situations.

Big Bird: Ta-da!

Voices: Oh, look at that.

Narrator: Something Sesame Street has recognized for 50 years.

Susan: Big Bird, when people die, they don't come back.

Big Bird: Ever?

Susan: No, never.

Narrator: Prolonged stress experienced by young children has a profound effect on healthy development. Too many children are exposed to traumatic experiences creating barriers to their success. We want to help them overcome these challenges.With Sesame Street in Communities, we're bringing Sesame Street across the country, empowering parents, caregivers, and local partners with trainings, support, and research-based resources to help all children get off to the best start.

Woman at podium: For us, this work is really about connections and community.

Scott Hall: We knew that if we had our community connections coupled with the trust that the brand at Sesame Street has, and the experience they have, that we can really make a positive impact.

Narrator: With on the ground partners, we are helping children prepare for school, build healthy habits, and cope with a wide range of traumatic experiences.

Karli: My mom was having a hard time with addiction. And I felt like my family was the only one going through it.

Furry Monster: When do you get to see your mom?

Child: Not that much.

Furry Monster: How come?

Child: Cause she's in prison.

Wendy Alexander: There's a lot of tough issues that we address when it comes to parenting.

Elmo's Dad: Sad feelings can come and go. And it's OK to talk about it.

Wendy: Having those tools to get through it, what greater way to do it through characters. Muppets.

Muppet: As long as we're together, we got this.

Page Ives Lemel: We are ready to get set with our families, our young children.

It's an opportunity to help our parents be better parents, to interact more strongly with their children, to teach them the skills that they need to be better students when they get into school. It's just absolutely a life changer and game changer.

Narrator: Together, we're bringing Sesame Street to every street, giving all children the chance to thrive.

[Music playing]

[Video ends]

Antonio: Thanks to all that we're not only able to reflect on that video, but embed into the chat window some of the ways you see yourselves reflected in that video. [Inaudible] talking about being able to support safely the children, both at home and her classroom. Sandra talking a little bit more about her role as both a provider and a caregiver and all of the different ways that you and other friends like Jessica are thinking about how we meet the needs of children by doing evaluations, putting in the work, and making sure that they get their needs addressed in playful, fun, and accessible ways to live to their greatest potential.

Sesame Street in Communities builds on the more than 50-year commitment to serving and learning from families and other grown-ups, working to build smarter, stronger, kinder kids one relationship at a time. The strategy that we use to reach this goal is to engage others and members of the community to help create resilient families.

We know and we talked about at the beginning of this conversation how every child deserves healthy food, and in every child that can be empowered to make healthy choices can live their best lives. Even when families are having a hard time getting nutritious foods at their tables, parents and other caring adults can remind children that our bodies are amazing and worth taking care of.We're going to take a moment and go together online to Sesame Street in Communities to watch this introductory video on our page for eating well. To do this, I'll go to ssic.org, and maybe. You have seen this before if we joined together on previous webinars and webcasts.

When you go to Sesame Street in Communities or ssic.org, you'll be welcomed by a page that encourages you to volley between English or Spanish, where all of t hose resources are also translated, and to identify as a provider or a caregiver. The only difference is that when you click into the provider facing side of the website, you also get access to the professional development, which you can see as the second part of the tab by scrolling over.

Our topics extend by more than 30 different ones with more than 1,000 different assets reflected across all of them.They are in A to Z categories, and they reflect three different kinds of themes — ABCs and 1, 2 3's, those school readiness topics like math, science, language and literacy, difficult times and tough talks that are topics that we've used to address with children sometimes hard to handle situations out of the realm of their control.

Things like community violence, parental addiction, and traumatic experiences.For today's conversation, the eating well part of our topic is going to be under our third and final thematic bucket, which includes healthy bodies, healthy minds. How are we creating a world where children are connected to themselves and the world around them to live their best lives?

As you take a look at the Eating Well page, like all of our others, it gives you a reminder of what the title of the page is about, a quick paragraph breakdown of what the page is mostly intended to be about, and then opportunities to start and put it into a profile if you've created that, to upload it on your desktop or to print out that paragraph or resource to share it with someone else at a later time.This also includes this quick introductory video that we'll watch in a moment. As you continue to scroll down, there's a wealth of other resources that we're going to be talking about together in slow motion today that include things like videos, articles, printables, storybooks, and even workshops.

If you're not quite sure what you want to look at first, consider who you're working with, and the types of ways they like to learn. By doing that, you can use our filter option where you think about the age of the person you're working with, be that a grown up or a child in different windows like 7 to 10, birth to 1, 2 to 3, or ages 4 to 6.The length of time you have with that person, be that 1 to 4 minutes, 4 to 10, or more than 10 minutes, and the type of asset or resource they might be most interested in learning.

Someone might be more interested in exploring what happens by taking a look at new at different foods if they're picky eaters by watching a video of Elmo. Another child experiencing that same challenge might be able to be more responsive by reading a storybook with Big Bird.

Thinking a bit more about your stakeholders and how they learn is the second step in this process once you've clicked into ssic.org. We're going to give you a quick minute to watch the introductory video that lets you know what healthy habits on Sesame Street in Communities is all about.

[Video begins]

Cookie Monster: Hello. Me Cookie Monster here today to talk to you about how important it is to eat healthy foods. Yeah. Now me know what you thinking. This guy going to talk about eating healthy, this guy who eat cookies like they going out of style. Well, you know me, not exactly healthy eating role model, but me learning.Yeah, and me found out that even though cookie is OK as special treat sometimes, there are all kinds of healthy foods that you can eat anytime like these colorful fruits and vegetables.

[Chomping]

Oh boy, they look so delicious. Oh yeah, and these kinds of foods make you healthy and strong. And because they so good for you, you can have them anytime. And you know what, they seem like good time to me. Come to papa. Aha!

[Chomping]

Apple.

[Video ends]

Antonio: That video gives you a sense of what our healthy habits for all initiative is all about and primarily centered on three key concepts. The first is talking about how we've developed it and by doing this with a focus on underserved communities in mind. We recognize that food insecurity is a huge problem, and it affects about 25% of all children, but it's also connected back to that social determinants of health magnified for children that are considered racially or ethnic minorities.

We also think about how we've been able to use the power of our brand and a furry friend to sort of leverage connections to children, to families, and to communities. We've been able to use a Muppet called Lily to think about how we address food insecurity by having a topic ambassador. Our overwhelming goal is to support all families and children in imparting wellness, specifically around nutrition, and as always, to inspire hope.

Those three different concepts of our healthy habits’ initiative all start with this first one of being connected to nutritional literacy, the idea of how to use leftovers, thinking about what foods may be shelf stable, and the most food buying and preparation processes on the limited budget. We think about taking into account food shortages that many families have experienced, as well as the availability of fresh food, and think a little bit more about how to think about storing, freezing, and even eating seasonally.

To present information about best practices around health nutrition, we want to push the ideas of portion control, nutritional milestones that children reach that everyone can know about, and the ability for grownups in children's lives to read food labels and think about how we encourage drinking more water and avoiding sugary drinks.The emphasis here is on the flexibility and the creativity that comes with food choices and in practice. All our resources are aligned to the HSPPS requirements in 1302.46, and that's connected to Head Start's family support services for health, nutrition, and mental health.

These include parent collaboration, opportunities where children and families can discuss with staff a child's nutritional status, thinking about the importance of physical activity, healthy eating, and the negative health consequences of sugar-sweetened beverages.We've tried to dovetail our work with all of yours, so these conversations that are already happening can have one more tool that you can use when connecting with others.

The second concept, mindful awareness of food resources, includes the ways that we carry into those families' daily lives, and at the table, and on the go all the things that they eat. We consider where the food comes from, who grows it, who helped get it to the store, and help get it to our plates. This, we believe, is a gratitude building process, which in turn then builds resilience and helps everyone in the neighborhood make mindful and healthier choices and ways to appreciate what they have by using things like Lily's message. We talk and I'll show you a video in a few minutes that says and essentially explores this idea that although we might not have everything we want, we do have everything that we need.

The third and final concept is this idea of reaching out for help. We know and recognize that nationally, and even internationally, there is tremendous stigma about asking for help and for food. The stigma also grew as more families became food insecure due to the impact of the pandemic. We want to empower parents to advocate for their children, to inspire them, to stay persistent in getting services, and to increase community connections.

We want to reduce the shame in asking for help, to build empathy around food insecurity, and to highlight it as a problem that affects many Americans and that can happen to any of us. This is sort of giving us the chance to be realistic about the access to healthy food, thinking about and how we talk about food deserts and food swamps, and where calories are available, but not necessarily available in healthy whole foods.

In previous nutrition webinars, we've been able and encourage programs to ask families about food insecurity and have been able to intentionally connect programs to WIC and SNAP by making sure that they know where local farmer's markets and food pantries are. Our work dovetails with all the great things you are doing across Head Start programs.

In developing our approach to addressing this topic with everyone in the neighborhood, the team at Sesame was strategic in creating three pathways to create and communicate the importance of healthy foods for all, each based on the identity of that specific stakeholder that we built the resources around. This includes children, adults, and the community with the different groups combined.For our first group of stakeholders, the team here at Sesame Street in Communities aimed to talk to children about the importance of choice and mindfulness. We put on this slide some of those key ideas that we've tried to embed in the resources and in the slides that are about to show you.

Lily, a Muppet character, who debuted with us in 2011 in Sesame Street Special Growing Hope Against Hunger was described in our earliest materials as being in a food insecure space. In 2011, she appeared before the National Press Club in a Sesame Workshop presentation about a food for thought campaign.

Seven years later in 2018, we decided to reintroduce her in a series of online videos as part of our initiative counter to homelessness because we know a great amount of people are connected to food insecurity and homelessness. Being able to put both of those ideas together in a realistic way reflected not only the needs, but sadly, the realities of so many children and families across the United States. In this way, we're able to start to gain a little bit more notoriety with her.

We think about how we use and leverage the power of the Muppet to do the heavy lifting. We think about building and building a back story of Lily as a sweet girl whose family has moved through that crisis of food insecurity. She's actually in a position to teach other children about it, and therefore, sort of pay it forward.As part of that initiative to counter the family homelessness, we understand that this can become the face of resiliency and that we can all become stronger in the knowledge that we have, and ready to face any challenges that may lie ahead. Let's take a look at some of the different resources connected to children.

Storybooks are some of those fun ways to share with children things that can keep them safe, sound, and literate, and engage with the adults in their lives. These stories can be read aloud from the screen or with the loved one reading the book with the child. All of our resources are reflected in English and in Spanish.

In our food page connected to healthy eating, we have two different stories — "Summer Sips" and "A Delicious Day." Both give you a little bit of an explanation about what the topic is, with the "Delicious Day" being Granny Bird and Big Bird taking a field trip to the food pantry to get some newest resources, and "Summer Sips" is a story about healthy choices that we'll take a look at together.

As we read the story, I'm going to encourage you to put into the chat window some of the activities or resources or suggestions of things you might do as you're reading or using this book with others. To [Inaudible] point, all these books are free. They don't need to be purchased because they are reflected online for free. I'll show you how to get on it right now.I'm going to click back into ssic.org. I'll scroll over to the topics page, go over to the Eating Well page, which we were again reflected on today.

I'm going to go all the way down; you can see all those resources. The top one, "Summer Sips" is here. It's got the big idea that says it can be fun and easy to add more water to children's diet. It gives you a breakdown of what the story is mostly about with some general suggestions of ways you might be able to do some things before, after, or during it. Let's take a look at "Summer Sips" together.

[Video begins]

Narrator: "Summer Sips," a story about... Lily, Rosita, and Elmo had worked all spring and summer volunteering and helping in the community garden. They planted seeds, watered them, and watched them grow. Finally, the fruit was ripe. It was time to harvest and pick what they'd grown for the food pantry. There, anyone who didn't have enough healthy food could take some home.

At the pantry, the other volunteers thanked them for their gifts from the garden. Rosita waved to Abuela, who was showing everyone how to make her famous agua fresca, which was water with fruit.

"I learned that we need lots of water to stay healthy, and soda isn't good for our bodies," said Rosita. "I love adding fruit to water."

"Rosita's Abuela taught us how to use a lemon and a lime to make fruity water," Lily told her mom.

"Great idea," Lily's mom said. "Elmo and Rosita are joining us tonight, so you all can make your own together."

They chose one lemon, one lime, two oranges, two apples, one can of peaches, and one can of pears. They also chose some rice and beans for dinner.

"I can't wait to taste some of what the kids have grown," Lily's mom smiled once they got home. Hey, why don't you kids go out back and make fruity water while us grownups cook inside? "

Lily's new baby brother made a happy little sound.

"I'll cut and mash up the fruit," Elmo's daddy said. "We'll put the canned fruits in bowls, and you can use the juice too."

Soon, the table had turned into a rainbow. "I think I'll add all the berries we grew into my water," said Rosita.

Elmo looked at the peaches and pears and imagined mixing them with water and a splash of their juice. "Elmo's drink will be called P is for party," he giggled.

"Wow," Elmo said proudly. "Elmo, and Lily, and Rosita are fruity water artists."

"Abuela says you can eat the fruit at the bottom with the spoon," Rosita said. "Yum," said Elmo and Lily at the same time.

"Let's make more," Elmo said. "What do the grownups want?"

"You choose," Louie said. "You're good at this."

"OK," Elmo said. "Daddy will get — um, Elmo's famous water with peaches and pears."

"That will be great," Louie laughed.

Lily added honeydew melon chunks and blueberries to her water. Rosita made one with apple, pear and peach chunks plus a little pear and peach juice. They made two of each, one for themselves, and one for their grown-up.

The grown-ups loved their drinks. They all held up their glasses. Clink! "Thanks to our volunteer gardeners!" Lily's mom said. "Hooray for the helpers!"

"Thank you to the soil and the seeds," Abuela added. "And to the sun and the rain for helping all this fruit grow."

"Yes," Louis said. "Thanks to some sunshine and rain, teamwork, and creative thinking, we have a healthy summer feast. Cheers!"

[Video ends]

Antonio: It's a fun, light story that gives you again, a little bit of a wink to those big concepts connected to how we created this initiative in the first place. Shout out to Melissa who's been able to put into the chat window some of the ways you might be able to integrate this book into conversations with children, connected to Indigenous cultures, traditions, food, and holidays.

This is also a great time to share with children to explore maybe before they're eating their favorite fruits. Then after the reading of the story, potentially creating some of their own little fruit agua frescas in a way that is meaningful to them with their favorite flavors that they can share with families back at home.This is just one of those two books reflected on our Eating Well topic page that children can read, that families can read at home, or that Head Start staff can read within programs to begin to ground the conversation in what keeps us healthy and what keeps us engaged and connected to the world around us.

Moving on, we have those interactive games. If you've seen before, interactive games are those responsibly designed digital games we've been able to put on tablets, on cell phones, or even on computer screens so that children can play as their furry friends at Sesame Street. They can plant a garden here like Rover, explore a classroom like Cookie Monster, or think about exploring a doctor's office for the first time like Rosita.

We use this as almost like a training ground where children can explore the world around them in safe ways, so when it does happen in the real world, they have the skills and some level of awareness on what to be prepared for. In this game "Grow Your Colors," we'll take a look at farmer Grover and the way that he can grow a rainbow of colors in the ground.

I'm going to go into type, down to interactive. Like all those previous assets we've talked about, the big idea is up here. A quick way and suggestions on how to play the game is here, and we'll take a quick minute to play together.

[Interactive game begins]

[Antonio selects choices]

Rosita: [Laughter] Hola. Welcome to the Community Garden. The gardeners here are busy growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Some are red, some are green.

Grover: It is like you were growing colors. [Laughter]

Rosita: [Laughter] That's right, Grover. And we're going to eat the colors we grow at a community picnic. Eating fruits and vegetables in all different colors helps keep you healthy.

Grover: Well, then I, your adorable Gardener Grover, I am going to grow a color that we do not have yet.

Rosita: Muy bien. Follow we. Baby Bear is growing purple plums.

Baby Bear: How are you guys?

Rosita: Cookie Monster is growing red tomatoes.

Cookie Monster: Hello.

Rosita: Elmo is growing orange bell peppers.

Elmo: Hi there.

Rosita: And I'm growing white squash. And here is the storage shed. Let's pick your seeds.

Grover: OK.

Rosita: We're already growing purple plums, red tomatoes, orange bell peppers, and white squash. We need to grow something that's green. Click on a seed packet that's green.

Antonio: I want to show you what happens if you don't click on something that's green.

Rosita: Uh oh, that seed packet is for red strawberries. Choose a seed packet that's green. Muy bien. That seed packet is for a yummy green spinach. That's the color that we're missing. Now, we can eat all of our colors at the picnic.

Grover: Oh, I am so happy we can finally plant our seeds. Let us grow. [Laughter] That is a garden joke.

[Music Playing]

Grover: This is our plot. Rosita told me that to plant our seeds, we must first dig a hole. Hmm, how do we do that?[Gasps] I know! To dig a hole, click on the shovel. Now, move your shovel back and forth over the plot. Yes! Dig, dig, dig.

[Interactive game ends]

Antonio: Thanks to two different friends, both Kimberly and Alice, for talking about ways you might be able to embed this game with children in your care by thinking about and exploring traditions with your family, and thinking about being able to expand vocabulary, [Inaudible] to the variety of fruits and vegetables, colors, and it's a specific healthy approach to how we grow them. That it doesn't just come from the grocery store, but it grows in the ground and uses the sun and the soil and water to make it healthy, ripe, and ready to be eaten.

We’ve taken a look at that first bucket of resources specifically intended for children. The second is specifically about our messages for children and adults. This sort of thinks about and connects us to the ways that families can eat together, and the way that Head Start staff are engaged with children in their care throughout the day.

For all groups of children and the adults in their circle of care, we've tried to create the importance of this through those bulletin pieces of information on the left side of your screen. Many people know about videos from Sesame Street because this is what we've been made famous for. We can show through our videos friends of Sesame Street young and old the different ways that we stay healthy, informed, and in control when life feels a little overwhelming. This can be easily found by looking for that small orange icon of a play button in the bottom right hand corner of each video rectangle.

These can be shared in a variety of settings, and they often include a general recommendation of a scripted language or activity that you could do while you're watching the video with children or other people that you're watching it with. We're going to take a look and see the video, "Eating Colorful Fruits and Veggies" together.

[Video begins]

[Music playing]

Rosita: What is that music?

Grover: Where have I heard that before?

[Music Playing]

Grover: Oh now, I remember.

Super foods: [Singing] Give a cheer, shout hooray. Superfoods will save the day.

Grover: You again?

Rosita: Wow, Superfoods! Oh, maybe you can help me. Yeah, I was going to have some crunchy twist. But now, [Clears throat] I need a different snack.

Swiss cheese: Well, we know lots of healthy foods you can eat at snack time, or anytime.

Banana: Really? Like what?

Banana: Well, there's a whole rainbow of really delicious foods that are good for you.

Grover: OK, do not listen to them. You cannot even eat a rainbow.

Whole wheat: Oh, sure you can. Eating a rainbow of healthy, different colored foods can make you stronger and smarter.

Rosita: No?

Whole wheat: Yes. Hey, and you can eat them anytime. I'll sing a little song about it.

Grover: No, that will not be necessary actually.

Whole wheat: Oh, here's one I learned from my hero Judy Garlic. [Laughter] So hold on to your ruby slippers 'cause we're not in Kansas anymore.

[Music playing]

Whole wheat: [Singing] Sometime, you'll eat a rainbow and you will find.

Broccoli: [Singing] Uh huh, uh huh. Uh huh, uh huh.

Whole wheat: [Singing] Fresh foods of different colors make strong bodies and minds.

Broccoli: Sing it, Whole Wheat.

Whole wheat: [Singing] Red like apples, cherries too. Orange carrots good for you. And yellow corn, yum.

All super foods: [Singing] Yum, yum, yum, yum.

Whole wheat: [Singing] Green like lettuce all like peas. Blue for foods like blueberry, and purple plums. Yum.

Rosita: It looks delicious.

Grover: Yes, but just so you know, singing, not the superpower.

Whole wheat: [Singing] Now you can make a rainbow on your plate.

Broccoli: [Singing] Uh huh, uh huh. Uh huh, Uh huh.

Whole wheat: [Singing] Choose food of different colors. Eat them any time. Eat them early or late. Ha! Then you'll feel so great.

All super foods: Great. Great. Great.

Whole wheat: [Singing] So great!

[Video ends]

Antonio: We might consider watching that video together with children, and then drawing pictures of fruits and vegetables just like you saw in Rosita's rainbow. Consider using markers or crayons in a rainbow of colors to draw and label the favorite fruits and vegetables of children in our care. Think about things like blue blueberries, green celery, orange carrots, red apples, yellow squash, and so on. How many can you think of? You might also consider displaying children's work on the refrigerators, in your spaces, or sharing them with families at home to put them at home on the refrigerators there.

In addition to those videos, we've also updated that "Eating Well" topic page with three more new ones from our friend Lily to share with everyone in the family. In "Chef Lily's Tips," we have cheers to fruits and veggies. Our furry friends remind children that to get enough servings of fruits and vegetables every day, it helps to drink some of them. It's done through a smoothie tutorial.

We also know that a little planning goes a long way in stretching a family's grocery dollar. Observing with children how the Alicea-Eiras family stretched their groceries across the week can be seen in the video watching "Making Leftovers Last."In "Healthy Food can be Fun," you can learn how to build healthy habits by involving children in food preparation and following their creative leads. We're going to put up a quick poll right now to see which one we can share as a group together.

We have "Chef Lily's Tips" at 24% and "Making Leftovers Last" at 48. It's almost a little less than half of the group. Then "Healthy Foods can be Fun" with 20%. Let's take a look at "Making Leftovers Last." Let's take a look together.

[Video begins]

[Music playing]

Lily: Hi, I'm Lily from Sesame Street. And I'm here visiting my friends, the Alicea-Eiras family. That's Miss Stacey, the mom. And there's Olivia.

Olivia: Hi.

Lily: [Chuckles] There's Mr. Dan, the dad. And there's Elena. Hi, Elena.

Elena: Hi.

Lily: [Laughter] This family is so cool. They're going to show me how they make yummy healthy foods like ha-bi-chua.

Olivia: It's habichuelas.

Lily: Habichuelas. What does that mean?

Olivia: It means "beans" in Spanish.

Lily: Oh, thanks. [Chuckles] I'm learning. Anyway, this family has a really special chalkboard where they write down all the foods that they need, and then they plan their meals. Let's go check it out, OK?Oh wow, this chalkboard! I can't believe it. You wrote all those foods down? Hey, Olivia, I see a word up there that starts with B. That would be "beans." and I love beans. [Chuckles] Do you like beans?

Olivia: Yeah, I love beans.

Lily: Well, what are you going to make?

Olivia: We're having arroz con habichuelas for dinner tonight with rice and roasted veggies.

Lily: Wow! That sounds so yummy. Did you help plan what you would eat tonight?

Olivia: Me and my sister planned.

Lily: Really?

Olivia: Yeah.

Ms. Stacey: Yeah, do you guys remember when we went to the grocery store yesterday and got all the ingredients?

Elena: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ms. Stacey: You remember. That's great.All right guys. We're ready to do this? We're going to go grocery shopping. Do our compra for the week. OK, so first, what did we want to eat this week? What are we thinking about?

Olivia: Chili!

Ms. Stacey: Chili?

Olivia: Beans!

Ms. Stacey: Beans, OK. Let's do beans.

Olivia: Bean [Inaudible]. Bean [Inaudible].

Ms. Stacey: Oh, whoa, whoa! A big pot of habichuelas, because then we can use the beans for the chili.

Olivia: Yeah, and also tacos. Bean tacos.

Lily: Every week, the family makes a meal plan. They talk together about what they want to eat, then they write the foods they need on their chalkboard. They don't like to waste food, so they choose foods that can be used in lots of different ways.

Ms. Stacey: OK. Elena, what do you want to eat this week, baby?

Elena: Beans!

Lily: This week, they're making beans because they can be used in lots of meals.

Ms. Stacey: What other veggies?

Mr. Dan: Maybe some cauliflower.

Olivia: Sure.

Ms. Stacey: Where do we want to put the cauli?

Elena: Broccoli.

Ms. Stacey: Oh, broccoli. Do you want to do the broccoli with the tacos?

Elena: Yeah.

Ms. Stacey: OK, let's do the broccoli with the tacos.

Lily: Olivia writes her shopping list. And Lele draws hers.

Elena: Look at this tomato. [Makes eating sounds]

Mr. Dan: That looks yummy.

Lily: When the family has their meal plan and shopping list ready, they go to the store to buy the foods they need.

Ms. Stacey: Hey, Oli, can you go grab the tomatoes for me over there? We'll wait here.

Lily: When they're at the store, Olivia and Lele help to find the foods on their list.

Ms. Stacey: Let's check the list. Can you find the brown beans for me?

Lily: Tonight, the family is making beans and rice and roast vegetables.

Ms. Stacey: Go ahead, cross them all off so we know we got all the beans we need.

Lily: My mom says that it's healthy to eat fruits and vegetables from all the colors of the rainbow. Once they have everything they need, they head back home and are ready to help in the kitchen.

Lily: Wow, everyone is doing their part to make a healthy family meal. Ms. Stacy is already cooking the beans. Mm, it smells so yummy. And Lele is helping wash the vegetables.

Mr. Dan: OK, let's do the broccoli now. And we want to make sure that it's nice and clean before we cook it, right?

Ms. Stacey: OK, it's starting to boil. How about I lower the temperature, and you set the timer? We'll check it along the way.

Olivia: So, all the way around?

Ms. Stacey: Yep. Thanks, Oli. We'll just leave it a crack open, and we just let it cook until the whole house smells really good, right?

Mr. Dan: Hey, great job stirring, Lily.

Lily: Oh, thanks.

Mr. Dan: And Olivia, here's some tomatoes for you. I know you love making salsa for your quesadillas.

Lily: Do you like tomatoes?

Olivia: Yeah, I love tomatoes.

Lily: Really? I don't like raw tomatoes.

Olivia: Really?

Lily: No. My mom says, though, if I take two try-it bites, I can be part of the two-bite club. And guess what?

Olivia: What?

[Video ends]

Antonio: Friends, in the interest of time, I'm going to trim this video a little bit more. This gives you a sense of what the video is mostly about, but I have a couple more important things that I want to flag for you. I do want to also flag, this is a great video that Sesame has offered that you can share with families via parent workshop at the beginning of a day or to sort of begin to explore with staff members ways you can create healthy patterns of eating at home and in early child care programs. This gives you a little sense of what that video is all about and where you can go to see even more of it.

When we think a little bit more about in this space, the specific messages that we have for adults, we want to flag some of the different things that are reflected on those three bolts, but specifically, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that no more than two hours of screen time a day, and for children under two, to not watch any television.While we're naming that we're also crafting here some of the big concepts and big messages that our subject matter experts communicated to us when crafting best practices and the resources connected to them.

One of the biggest things that we use for adult-facing resources is our articles. These are highlighted by that small purple icon of a newspaper. These are informative texts, usually at a third to fifth-grade reading level with easy-to-access bulletin information. We have a whole lot of articles about eating healthy, stretching your dollar and thinking about how to address the needs of picky eaters that you can communicate to families in your programs.

I mentioned this previous webcast, but if you don't have a lot of times in your running programs and see families only at arrival or dismissal, sometimes just thinking about that big idea, that single sentence on the purple ribbon at the top is a great way to keep ideas fresh in your head without having to memorize the entire story.

In addition to articles, we also have workshops. These are sixth and final type of resource and are just a combination of those other five types of assets that the U.S. Social Impact Team has bundled together. It might include a video an article, or a storybook, a principal and an article.In the specific workshops on our "Eating Well" topic page, we have healthy eating, a specific family workshop that you can do to explore ways to support families on eating healthy.

This includes not only talking about what makes healthy eating, but some specific recipes that can be cooked and prepared with families or just given to them via paper that can be cooked at home.In addition to all those great resources we've talked about today on the "Eating Well" topic page, we also have two other topic pages that might be of interest to you if you want to dig a little bit deeper when we talk about health and wellness with Sesame Street in Communities.

That's our topic page called "Moving our Bodies" about physical movement with fine and gross motor skills. Also the "Staying Healthy" page, which was created when we had COVID, and we're addressing health emergencies in ways that encourage children to stay healthy amidst things and things that we couldn't necessarily control.

I want to take a quiet moment to share with you on the screen some of the big ideas that we've tried to communicate through the resources we talk through today. I want to encourage you in this silent moment to consider maybe putting into the chat window any comments or reflections on what you're sitting with from this conversation, or ways you might want to begin to integrate these into the fold of programming.

We want to make sure that all the resources we're talking about today are broad enough so anyone can easily access them. You can dig deep into our printable resources into the page on "Eating Well," and flag and filter under principles.As we close out today's conversation, I want to give you two quick things to look at. The first is that we have four new videos with Lily. We don't have time to watch that alignment up one on the right side, but it is a quick fun tutorial that children might be able to watch with you and to think a little bit more about how they can cook healthy foods at home with the grown-ups in their family.

I want to take this moment to thank you for connecting with us, for sharing your tips, your tricks, your presence, and your best practices. I encourage you to continue to visit ssic.org to think of the ways that you can not only use these resources but share back with us what's working and what we can refine to better meet your needs and the needs and wants of children and families in your care.On behalf of the Sesame Workshop and the team, my name is Antonio Freitas. I want to thank you for all that you are, for the children and the families in your community, and to fill out this evaluation to let us know how we're doing.

Nydia: Thank you so very much once again, Antonio Freitas. This is such important information and great resources. If you have more questions, you may go to MyPeers or write to health at ecetta.info. The evaluate URL, the evaluation URL, it will appear when the webinar ends. Do not close the Zoom platform or you won't see that evaluation pop up.Remember after you submit the evaluation, you will see a new URL and that link will allow you to access, download, save, and print your certificate. You can subscribe to our monthly list of resources using this URL as well. You can find our resources in the health section of the ECLTC or write us at health at ecetta dot info.