Healthy nutrition for children: a game for dealing with sweets

Karim has bad teeth and is overweight. Once he gets pocket money from his parents, he spends it on the sweet and savory supermarket. Candy lets Karim hide everyday difficulties for a short time. “When I eat sweets, I feel good. I have the feeling that I can forget everything around me! ”You know this from some school children?

The consumption of sweets is a kind of substitute drug. The short-term satisfaction of needs becomes a daily vicious cycle. Children often lack alternative courses of action on how to give themselves well-being.

With this self-designed game you teach children the principles of a healthy diet. How you with the Children that I will show you how to design and play a game below.

Develop a game about healthy eating with the kids

A game designed together with the children offers a number of experience opportunities, from which of course all children benefit.

The children learn from the game:

The dangers of excessive candy consumption in a funny way
Different ways you can solve tasks with other children
How they formulate their own wishes to increase their well-being
Listening to other children’s wishes
That their own wishes are fulfilled

The game takes about 2 hours to create. Depending on the time, you can make the game in one afternoon or split the process into several sections

Step 1: Get the children involved in game development

The children sit in a circle and close their eyes. she tell following fantasy story: "Imagine you wake up in the land of milk and honey. Everywhere you look there are delicacies: candy bars grow out of the ground in front of you, gummy bears hang on the trees. If you continue, you will come to a french fries park, which also has a ketchup fountain. You walk on and see the chocolate mountains shimmering in the distance.

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Now you open your eyes again and we continue walking together. What else do you discover? ”The children tell their own“ visions ”from the land of milk and honey. You write them down on a piece of paper, as do the areas in the land of milk and honey that you described. Now choose with the kids, e.g. B. in the point system, the 6 most popular areas of the land of milk and honey. The children divide into 6 groups and draw one of the selected areas together on a DIN A4 sheet.

Step 2: The children design the game

The single ones pictures are placed on a large poster, e.g. B. DIN A1, glued. Now the children cut white and red circles with a diameter of 4 cm out of construction paper. You need about 4 times as many white circles as red circles because the red ones represent the event fields in between.

The number of circles varies depending on how long the journey is through the land of milk and honey. The circles are glued in such a way that a red one always follows after 3-5 white circles. At the end of the way, a treasure chest, e.g. B. set up an ornate box. Now the game board is ready.

Step 3: think of events

Now, together with the children, think about what could happen in the land of milk and honey. B.

You spoil your stomach at the ketchup fountain and have to skip a lap.
A child rescues his friend from the Chocolate Mountains and makes him laugh with a joke. If you can tell a joke, you can move 3 circles.
You bite your tooth out of the candy bar. You have to go to the dentist and therefore 3 fields back.
You got a banana in the orchard and get strength for the way. Advance 4 spaces.

Now the children go back into their subgroups and think about at least 3-4 other events. These are written on index cards and then presented to the others. Together, the children coordinate which events are included in the game. The selected cards are now assigned to the individual stations in the land of milk and honey.

Step 4: The children think of rewards

Whoever has crossed the land of milk and honey with all his temptations and is the first to reach the finish line may open the treasure chest and take out a treasure. This treasure consists of a piece of paper on which there is an intangible wish that the child will fulfill as soon as possible, e.g. B. a game or a massage.

The children can think about these wishes themselves and write them on a piece of paper. The wishes come into the treasure chest and the winner pulls out his wish and reads it out. Now you only need a cube and a play figure for each child, then the journey to the land of milk and honey can begin.

Addiction prevention in the form of a game – you can do this with the Schlaraffenland you have designed yourself. The children learn that "super sweet" only ensures short well-being, "super good" in the form of a game with friends but ensures a good mood for much longer!

Have fun creating the game together and then playing. This is how you support the children comprehensively.