Everyone is busy getting their kids back to school.  What a perfect time to take a little break and bring the kids to a Family Night that will mix fruits and vegetables and lots of FUN.  Nourish Interactive has been working with Fresh Choice to reach out to kids and promote healthy eating.  With September being National Childhood Obesity Awareness month, it is a reminder to us how important healthy foods and daily activity is for kids.

We are happy to let our San Mateo, CA and nearby Peninsula cities know that the Fresh Choice Restaurant in San Mateo will host its First Family Night.  Nourish Interactive will be there with nutrition education games to make fruits and vegetables fun for kids.

Click to go to Facebook Event Page!

Take a night off from cooking and enjoy fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables from their local farm while the kids have some fun learning about healthy food choices.

Just a few of the FREE & FUN nutrition activities for kids:

• Take a picture with Chef Solus
• Play Nourish Interactive Games- winner of Parents’ Choice Seal and Children’s Library Association Award
• Play tic-tac-toe   The vegetables versus Chef Solus
• Coloring fruits and vegetables while kids learn where produce really comes from!
• Spin the wheel, land on a fruit or vegetable and win a prize!
• Healthy eating out tips for parents to take home.
• Each child will have their name entered into a contest and have a chance to win a Wii game system.

Play the Yummy Drops Fruit Game and automatically get a FREE Kids meal coupon for Fresh Choice Restaurant!

More information:

Family Night event at Fresh Choice Restaurant in San Mateo, CA

Fresh Choice and Nourish Interactive Partnership

Nourish Interactive partnered with Fresh Choice!

Let’s Move’s Apps for Healthy Kids Challenge is happening now- Voting for Popular Choice ‘People’s Award’ Ends this Saturday!

Haven’t picked your favorite game yet?  There’s still time but act quick..oh and vote for Chef Solus. Why him, you ask?

Top 20 Reasons to Vote for Chef Solus’ Healthy Games for Kids Right Now

20. He’d vote for you

19. He’s cute, funny, smart, healthy and… loves to cook- what more could you ask for?

18. He’s going to create more FREE healthy eating games and learning tools for schools and families, whether he wins or not!

17. Because cartoon food never tasted so good! ( & healthy!)

16. He is created by a woman owned business- vote for smart, hardworking, fun, and creative women! (1:10 ratio of women:men holding leadership positions in business)

15. A vote for him is truly a vote the little guy

14. He promises to “Like” your page

13. Kids are counting on your vote so their teachers can have even more free lesson plans and nutrition worksheets to give them, well ok- maybe not. But kids do love his educational games!

12. If you don’t vote, how can he win?

11. His ‘Healthy Harvest Maze’ is a farm food game that promotes farms and teaches kids what fresh fruits and vegetables are, how they grow, and how yummy they are to eat! Which is a good thing, especially after Jamie Oliver’s show revealed so many kids have no idea the names of produce or where food comes from! Plus, it’s way better (for everyone) than that other farm game, you know ‘that’ one.

10. He’s definitely not looking to have his own reality show

9. Raise you hand if you’re really NOT interested in the idea of packing up your backpack (with yummy snacks) right now and heading out to explore inside a Pyramid with Chef Solus on an Adventure

8. He’s bilingual, so you can play and learn in English or Spanish

7. His printable monthly healthy family calendar has cute graphics, easy healthy food and physical activity tips for busy parents.

6. Did we mention the word, free? (& 100% AD free kids wing)

5. He really has his heart set on being David Letterman’s next guest!

4. He already got his haircut and a new chef hat for his photo with the First Lady and the Let’s Move crew!

3. Polls say he’s the best candidate to have a drink… a fresh fruit and veggie smoothie with

2. His motto: The Fun Way to Learn About Nutrition! Fun and nutrition in the same sentence, is a big step towards combating unhealthy food ads and messaging directed at kids!

1. It takes less than 3 minutes to vote for Chef Solus

Ready to vote?

1. Register here

2. Check your email to confirm

3. Click here and you’ll see   button, click on it and you voted for Chef Solus’ Game!

Thank you, together we can create a healthier future for all children. Over 2000 schools and communities and 40,000 members use the games to teach children about eating healthy and being active. If Nourish Interactive wins more children and families will discover his fun nutrition games and tools for wellness. They are all free and available in English or Spanish.

Once you’re registered at Apps for Healthy Kids, you can help out more by clicking to vote for the other 3 Nourish Interactive Games that are finalists!

The Popular Choice Awards will have two winners- 1 for games and 1 for tools. We have 3 games and one tool in the finals.

Kevin’s Build a Meal- Tool

Healthy Harvest Maze

Ride the Food Label

Chef Solus Food Pyramid Adventure
Thank you for supporting our fun nutrition games for kids in Apps for Healthy Kids Challenge!

About our Games and links to play them! We have over 20 free online nutrition education games and interactive wellness tools. These are the four games that we created that are finalists in the Apps for Healthy Challenge.

Play Chef Solus and the Food Pyramid Adventure- This is our main 7-level game where the child will enter a virtual food pyramid and learn about each of the food groups, create balanced meals and find the balance between food and exercise. This game requires a log in so that the child can save their place in the game, accumulate points and test scores. Teachers and parents can receive progress reports via email for each level completed with tips and activities about the key messages the child just learned. Anyone can play the first two levels of the game without signing up by playing the demo version.  or Sign up to play all the levels- it’s free!

Try out Kevin’s Build a Meal Game virtual meal planner- Kids make a customized meal plan based on the USDA guidelines. The child will need to enter their age, gender and activity level (this has audio and “game help” if they need more guidance). Based on their information they are given their required calories and the servings by food group their body requires for a healthy balanced meal.
Kids go into a kitchen, cafeteria and grocery store and look into cabinets and open drawers to find the foods. Kevin will judge their meal and see how well they did making a healthy meal that has the right amount of servings from each of the food groups!

Go- Ride the Food Label Game We bring the food label to life with our talking food label game. As the child scrolls over different parts of the food label, Chef Solus talks (along with written text) begins to teach the child about the various parts of the food label. Then kids can take a quiz where they go into a virtual grocery store and select two food items. The associated food labels pop up and then they are asked a few questions where the child will compare 2-3 food labels. If they get enough answers right, they will see the food label turn into a roller coaster and ride the food label!

Visit the Farm! Play Healthy Harvest Maze our newest game, is a fun game that teaches children about the importance of fruits and vegetables. Children will enjoy helping Chef Solus pick fruits and vegetables as they find their way through a farm field, orchard and a garden maze. Children get points for picking these healthy foods while learning about the healthy benefits, and nutrients for each food item they have harvested.

About Nourish Interactive and Apps for Healthy Kids Challenge

Apps for Healthy Kids Challenge created by Let’s Move is part First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to end childhood obesity. In the Spring, she challenged developers to use innovative games and media technology tools to teach children about nutrition, in a fun and engaging way to help fight childhood obesity. There are 95 games and tools on the Apps for Healthy Kids Website to try online and voters are needed to vote for their favorites!

I’m Maggie LaBarbera, RN founder of Nourish Interactive- The Fun Way to Learn About Nutrition. I am excited to announce that four of my games are finalists in Apps for Healthy Kids Contest, sponsored by the “Let’s Move” Campaign.The Let’s Move Campaign is lead by our First Lady, Michelle Obama with a mission to fight childhood obesity.

The public is encouraged to vote for their favorite games which will determine the winner of the Popular Award. Popular Choice is where you come in! You can support our free healthy nutrition games by voting for the 4 games

Update- Vote soon the contest ends August 14th! Chef Solus’ Food Pyramid Adventure Game has the best chance, of the four games we have in the finals, of winning- you can help by going directly to this link:

Chef Solus’ on Apps for Healthy Kids to vote for this one game!
It take about 3 minutes.

We are so proud to be part of this contest and join other game developers in finding fun and creative solutions for kids. This recognition would really go a long way in helping us to reach more children and produce more free games and tools in English and Spanish! And that is what we want to do but need your help.

Large international gaming companies, hospitals, and universities have games in finals, they have access to a huge network of employees and associates to get support from for votes. We are a small California start-up made up of moms who are RNs and RDs and we can’t win without your support!

About Apps for Healthy Kids Challenge
Michelle Obama is looking for innovative ways to reach out to children and help them learn the importance of healthy eating and being active.  She launched this contest to challenge the nation to come up with creative tools and games that are fun and would engage children all the while promoting healthy choices.  Once again, the Obamas are seeing the value of technology and the importance of FUN when reaching out to children.

Well, FUN and healthy choices and games!  Yes, that is exactly what Nourish Interactive is all about.  Helping kids be healthier through early and FUN online games and tools.  So we were very excited about this challenge and more excited that our games have been been accepted into the contest!

We hope you choose to vote for us, you can vote for 1 game or all 4 games that we have in the contest.

Register HERE- Let’s Move Apps for Healthy Kids

Each link below will bring you to the contest page where you can try the game and vote!

Chef Solus and the Food Pyramid Adventure The food pyramid comes to life as kids travel through each slice and learn about the food groups in this fun adventure game

Healthy Harvest Maze kids learn about fruits and vegetables as they travel through a farm maze and harvest fruits and vegetables

Ride the Food Label kids learn how to read a food label and take a little virtual quiz

Kevin’s Build a Meal kids create a customize meal based on the USDA guidelines as they enter a virtual kitchen, school cafeteria and grocery store

Please check out our games and vote- we really appreciate your vote!

You can help spread the word and show support for our games by placing this banner on your webpage, blog, facebook, myspace, twitter! Please help us spread the word and to show your support copy and paste code:

<a href=”http://nourishinteractive.com/healthy-kids-games-contest” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://nourishinteractive.com/images/nutrition-games/Badge-childhood-obesity-apps-forhealthykids-contest.gif” /></a>

Thank you so much for your continued support!

About our Website and Games

Maggie LaBarbera, RN

We are a based company that is dedicated to supporting parents by providing them with useful information to help them improve their families health and nutrition and are devoted to educating children about the importance of nutrition and exercise.  We have over 37,000 members and 4000+ organizations that use our FREE website and educational games to help teach children and families about the importance of healthy eating and daily exercise!

We believe in the power of prevention and that starts by investing in our children’s health today. We acknowledge and support the key roles of both the parents and the health educators. All games are available in English or Spanish and the kids’ pages and games are completely ad- free. Read more about the Nourish Interactive and it’s mission.

Sincerely,

Maggie LaBarbera and The Nourish Interactive Team

( Moms, RNs and Registered Dietitians who believe all children should have access to quality early nutrition education. We hope you visit our website it’s fun and free!)

Related Resources:

See all of our free nutrition games and read about the nutrition concepts they teach- We have over 20 interactive nutrition education games for kids!

Nutrition Tools for Teaching-  online tools, lesson plans and printable healthy tips for schools,  youth centers, community websites

For Parents Healthy family tips sheets, mini wellness articles with kid-friendly tips, and more!

You may be interested in our visitor and member comments

See our showcase of organizations, schools, cities, websites and bloggers who share our free games with their communities

Sign up for free membership

Contest Information

Read more about our submission

Read the rules for contest

Contest Prizes and Judging

Do a Monday meet-up with the kids

Start the week with a bit of fun! Pick an activity that you and the kids really enjoy and make family time to do it.

Mondays are a great day to renew Family Health vows. Every Monday, you will find some healthy tip to help your family start the week off on a Healthy Note!

Thanks to Healthy Monday organization for sharing their Monday tips.

It’s holiday time and we are all in the malls shopping for gifts. With the economy still recovering and the unemployment rate still pretty high, money is tight all over.

But there are gifts that kids and even adults can give that don’t cost money. The gift of your time doing something special can be a very personal and special gift. This is a great way to let kids be involved and realize the value of their time.

“Gift of time” presents ( or I should really say coupons) teach kids some very good lessons:

• kids can do things that have value
• a gift is not always about money
• giving a “gift of time” certificate requires some thought and creativeness. And that is part of the gift!
• loved ones feel very special when they get a gift that requires you to really give of yourself!

Print free gift of time coupon certificates designed for kids!

We have  also included a great list of ideas to help kids get started. Just print out the certificate and help them fill it in for a free, creative and meaningful gift to give this holiday season.

Free holiday printable gift of time coupon certificates for kids

It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow and the kids will be home from school for a few days.

If the kids are home and playing on the computer, video or watching TV, have them try playing some games that will teach them about eating healthy in a fun way.

Using games is not a new concept in helping kids learn important subjects like math, reading, typing etc. But nutrition is an important subject that kids need to learn for healthy living.

Learning about nutrition doesn’t have to boring or something your kids protests. It can really be a fun experience and by making it fun, kids begin to create a positive association with learning nutrition and fun. This along with learning how to create a balanced meal, why it is important and how energy and activities affect our bodies begins to give them the tools they need to make healthy choices.

I made our kids’ nutrition games and healthy tools for parents completely free because as a nurse, I don’t want there to be any reason for a child or parent to not have access to these fun learning tools. Kids can be introduced to our characters and educational materials over Thanksgiving by playing our online games or with our new free printable Thanksgiving coloring pages and fun nutrition activities.

Happy Healthy Thanksgiving from Nourish Interactive

Happy healthy Tahnksgiving

Back to school time can signify hectic schedules, homework and lots of eating on-the-go, but it doesn’t mean your family can afford to slack off on their physical fitness or healthy lifestyle. Jango Mango, official mango ambassador for the National Mango Board (and overall health nut), shares his tips to help keep your family in tip-top shape for back-to-school and all year long.

1. A fresh start: A new school year is a landmark that can bring new traditions, resolutions and decisions. All you have to do is make them. Make a list of goals for you and your family to get ahead of the game. Some great ideas include a central chalkboard in the house to track which chore each family member is responsible for, or get a calendar marking down family nights to ensure you get together at least once a week.

2. Stick to the pyramid: Mangos are an excellent source of vitamins A, C and good source of fiber. Energize your children with the healthy diet they need by avoiding junk food and offering nutritious options such as some Mango Oat Breakfast Bars to start your day off right or Sweet and Savory Mango Roll Ups for a fun after-school snack.

3. Meals at the ready: Need to get dinner on the table quick? There are quick and healthier alternatives to takeout that take the same amount of time to prepare. Try this Mango and Bacon Barbecue Pizza for starters which can be prepared in 20 minutes! You can also prepare snacks and meals a few days in advance to relieve some of the pressure. Try serving some baked tortilla chips with a fresh and healthy Cinco de Mango Salsa and storing it in the fridge for when hunger strikes.

4. Find the time to get active: Things can get busy, but try to set aside time each week to get the whole family together for an active day of fun. Play soccer, hold your own family marathon or get the whole family singing and dancing the Mango Fandango.

5. Make Learning Together Fun: Learning doesn’t have to stop when the bell rings. Try quizzing your child about geography and other fun facts in unique way with the Jango Geography online game.

I grew up on many fruits and vegetables.  Mango was one of my favorites.  It is so sweet and a great substitute for candy!

Crosswords, sudoku … any puzzle that taps your language or math skills can leave your mind sharp and stimulated.  Just a few minutes a day!

Mondays are a great day to renew Family Health vows. Every Monday, you will find some healthy tip to help your family start the week off on a Healthy Note!

Thanks to Healthy Monday organization for sharing their Monday tips.

Resources:

Nutrition crossword puzzles for kids

Nutrition wordsearch puzzles for kids

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, made the opening remarks at the conference, “Weight of the Nation”.  She stated

“the childhood obesity epidemic so severe in our country that this generation of kids could be the first in more than 200 years to live shorter lives than their parents“

 I remember the first time I heard this claim in 2005 by our Surgeon General.  I had to reread the article.  With all our technology, with all our advances in medicine, as a nurse I could not believe this was true.  As a mother, I was scared and worried about my children and my children’s children.  That was the shocking statistic that made me start NourishInteractive.com.

Here it is 2009, and I am reading the same prediction.  This time I am not dumbfounded, this time I am not shocked.  This time I am energized to continue to find ways to reach out to children and make healthy eating a fun topic they enjoy learning about.

I know that early education (before kids have formed their habits) is one of the most important strategies in fighting childhood obesity long term. I also know that most kids, regardless of their weight don’t eat a balanced diet; they are missing many nutrients.  This can effect their learning ability and long term health.

Please help me spread the word and get all kids learning about nutrition in a fun, positive way.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center has just released a report identifying video games as a useful means to educate children about health.

The report states:

“Digital games show significant potential to promote children’s growth and healthy development. They can foster skills and knowledge that help children with academic learning, as well as habits that contribute to better health.”

Unfortunately, video games have been tainted by the many violent games that are widely advertised amongst teens. Many parents and teachers don’t view games as a way to really teach kids using sound learning concepts.

I was really glad to see that organizations are starting to see what we already know! Video games are part of kids lives, why not use them in a productive way to help kids learn about healthy eating in a way that is meaningful and engaging. If we can’t hold their attention, they are not going to listen. That is our challenge and our goal. To make nutrition fun, to help kids make positive associations with nutrition and promote healthy eating habits.

The report makes the following recommendations:

The report calls for national leadership to coordinate new research investments to build knowledge and game development and training. It urges private investors, publishers and health insurers to form partnerships to encourage entrepreneurship in digital game technologies.

The report calls for a Digital Teachers Corps to help educators integrate curriculum-based games into school and afterschool settings. It also calls for new incentives for community health providers and insurers to deploy potentially cost-saving games to prevent obesity and to promote children’s healthy habits for life.

To update the Department of Education’s Ready to Learn program, which reaches low-income 2-9 year-old children with television programming, the report recommends a new emphasis on digital media such as video games and mobile technologies.

Resources:
About Our Nutrition Games for Children

Play Healthy Nutrition Games

Nutrition Education Games- Tools for Classrooms

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center

Social Impact Games

Share your comments about useful new media technology for educating children about health!