Early Childhood Education Centres can win a copy of Dinner Detectives books.  See details below...

Dinner Detectives: Exciting Stories Behind the Food We Eat Everyday! 

Last month we discussed the cultural and social significance of food and how food can be used to celebrate tradition and national days of remembrance such as ANZAC Day. At SNAC, we are passionate about healthy eating, multiculturalism and the wonderful and educative stories behind the foods we eat every day. We encourage early childhood education and care (ECEC) staff to promote the importance of food culture to the children in their care and how the food we eat can be used to represent identity, celebration and historical milestones.

The Dinner Detectives book series by Yves Stening and Nigel Buchanan are a fantastic resource you can use to take children back in time and around the world to discover wonderful stories of the culture and history behind the foods they eat and enjoy every day. These bright and colourful picture books can help educate children of the social and cultural significance of food through their engaging yet simple stories explaining the origins of food such as dumplings and pasta as well as easy to follow recipes relating to the stories and the culture of focus. A few ways you could use these books in your service could include:

• Book Reading: set aside a time during the day to read the book to your group of children using expressive and engaging mannerisms to educate children of the food they eat. Encourage discussion and the asking of questions.
• Food Tasting: using the recipes within the books, serve children food of the focused culture following a book reading. 
• Create a Cultural Food theme day: using one of the books, decorate yours service in cultural colours and serve food cooked using the recipe within the book. Encourage children to discuss the culture and participate in activities. 

To celebrate the importance of food culture, we have a copy of the Dinner Detective's Tangled Tagliatelli and A Fearsome Beast and Dumpling Feast to give away!

To go in the running to win these fabulous books let us know on our latest Facebook post how you would use these books with the children in your care to educate them about food culture and their social significance around the world.

We would also love to know whether your ECEC service would be interested in having one of the authors come along to do a book reading for the children. If you are interested please provide your details at the following link for us to pass on to the authors of the books. They may then be in contact with you to arrange a time and date for a reading: https://survey.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0xG7PQTIObQsBzn