When adults talk about healthy habits during the holidays, we mostly mean virtuously saying no to that last pig in a blanket or stuffed mushroom at the company holiday party. But when our kids talk about healthy habits, if they’ve been to a holiday camp or kids program at HealthBarn USA in Ridgewood, New Jersey, they’ll probably be talking about choosing in-season fruits and vegetables for their snack, eating food that comes straight from the garden, and developing “healthy behaviors and culinary skills for strong bodies and healthy minds.”
HealthBarn USA is an award winning, nationally recognized nutrition and culinary education program that, through classes, camps, and one-day courses, teaches children and adults how to grown their own organic food, then harvest it and prepare it with recipes that taste great and also happen to be great for them. This holiday season, HealthBarn USA is offering Holiday Camps for kids ages 3-12. In these camps, kids will work in the HealthBarn’s spacious indoor kitchen (and outdoors if the weather permits) to cook, compost, play games, take nature hikes and work on art projects inspired by the natural world. Homemade breakfast and lunch are provided each day as part of the healthy cooking experience so don’t be surprised if this healthy-lifestyle immersion experience transforms your pasta-with-butter-only kid into an adventurous eater with some mad (safe!) kitchen skillz.
HealthBarn USA will be offering a mixed age Mini Holiday camp the week of December 17th -21st. From December 27th – 29th, the Holiday camp will be offered as a 1, 2, or 3 day option. Or, register now for the upcoming MLK Day Camp, Winter Break Camp, or Spring Break Camps the weeks of March 25th – 29th and again April 15th – 19th. Spring Break camps offer the option of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 days each week.
For those who want to both eat and do something sweet over the holidays, join HealthBarn USA for a Holiday Baking Class: Gingerbread Cookies and Giving Back. On Saturday, December 16th from 2:00pm – 3:30pm, the entire family is invited to work as a team to make your dough from scratch, roll, shape, and bake your cookies. While your cookies are in the oven, write notes of love and encouragement to the families with ill children and seniors in need who will be the recipients of your fresh-baked cookies when they are distributed through the HealthBarn Foundation’s Healing Meals program. But never fear, there’ll still be plenty of cookies left over for you to sample your handiwork!
Then, after your kid has gotten hooked on preparing and eating nutritious, fresh, organic foods, sign them up for a Seasonal Kids Program. The 10-week Winter program starts the week of January 8th and includes not only the discovery of growing, cooking and eating natural foods from nature but also, classes will include seed starting for the spring organic garden. Kids aged 3 years old and up will work in age appropriate ways to taste and prepare fresh, in-season foods. It’s hard to know what the best part of the program is – the part where parents receive weekly recipes to continue the healthy eating at home, or the part where your kid discovers that they love to prepare and eat healthy food.
Registration for all holiday camps and the kids programs is open now. So, get your kid signed up and then, if you play your cards right, you might get to hand over your oven mitts permanently.
