Students Design Wellness Stickers at The Family School

Shanjida, the artist of the Family School’s healthy snack sticker and Ms. Quinones, the Family School art teacher.

This post was written by Cara Plott, a FoodCorps service member serving with Bronx Health REACH. She is partnering with The Family School in the Bronx, NY to integrate garden and nutrition lessons into classes, promote healthy food options in the cafeteria, and support a school wide culture of health. She is very grateful for the opportunity to work with The Family School, where teachers, administration, cafeteria staff, and students appreciate the importance of healthy bodies and healthy minds for learning and growing. 

Powerful enough to quiet a room, fabulous enough to wear home, that’s right, we’re talking stickers at the Family School, an elementary school in the Bronx. The teachers at the Family School recognize that stickers are a great healthy reward for younger students, however Ms. Quinones, our art teacher decided to take it a step further this year. In her art class we worked with students in grades pre-K to 2nd to design a “healthy snack sticker,” an idea we originally got from an initiative at PS 331. Through a series of lessons, Ms. Quinones helped students discover what healthy snack choices are, and why it important to make healthy choices. Students used this knowledge to make designs that portrayed healthy choices. After these lessons, our students made drawings that represented healthy snacks and encouraged choosing these foods.

Other student Healthy Snack Sticker designs displayed in The Family School art room.

Out of many beautiful designs, we picked the one made by Shanjida, a very talented second grader, for her thoughtful use of color and layout. Shanjida is well versed in vegetables and fruits because she has grown vegetables in The Family School garden in kindergarten and first grade. “When you eat healthy stuff you can grow and it’s better for you, when you eat junk food you get tired and you aren’t able to get more energy,” Shanjida explained.The stickers will be distributed by adult leaders in the cafeteria to students who bring or buy lunches that contain fruits and vegetables and healthy protein and carbohydrates, and will help to reinforce the Family School’s healthy snack policy.

The winning Healthy Snack Sticker designed by Shanjida, 2nd Grade.