A healthy heart is of course one of the important pillars of a happy, growing child. There’s many ways to support your kids’ heart health, to ensure they thrive.

Getting active outdoors

As we know, physical activity is a great way to promote a healthy heart and reduce risk of cardiovascular diseases. For kids, there are a bunch of fun, engaging activities to do which encourage heart health. These include skipping, jumping on a trampoline, playing hopscotch and more. Any activity that gets them moving regularly is great!

Healthy heart foods

What we eat plays a big role in heart health and reducing the impact of heart disease, especially if good eating habits are started at a young age. Foods that are beneficial for the heart include, leafy green veggies, whole grains, berries, avocado and fatty fish and fish oils. Here are some delicious, kid-friendly, heart healthy meals from our Healthy Living recipe collection: Banana Chia Pancakes, Teriyaki Salmon Poké Bowl, Raspberry Flaxseed Tart and Beetroot Tart.

Healthy habits

Healthy habits are a great way to get kids in a positive routine, which they can take on into life as they grow up. Perhaps it’s getting them into the garden or a community vegetable garden to start learning about growing fresh herbs or veggies, or going for a short walk after dinner time, or getting them involved in the cooking process so they learn the importance of cooking fresh, at home.

Do kids stuff!

Keeping a healthy heart isn’t just about being active and eating the right foods. It’s important to make sure kids are relaxed, and getting a good night’s sleep. Playing, being outdoors, and doing the things they love around family and friends will help them to feel happy and less stressed, leading to better sleep and happier brains. All pieces of the heart health puzzle!

November 13th marks the 2022 World Kindness Day and here at IGA, we believe that there’s nothing better than celebrating with your kids. The day serves as a great reminder to always act kindly towards yourself and those around you, and what better place to put this into practice than at home.

Although kindness seems like an easy skill to master, getting the whole family involved is a different story. Have a go at one of these fun, at-home activities and remind yourself and your loved ones just how important it is to spread kindness today and everyday.

Create a kind-compliment box

Grab that old, empty shoebox and get decorating! A compliment box is the funnest way to encourage kindness within the household. Set a daily task for every member of the family to drop a compliment in the box before heading out. At the end of the day, get the family together and go through them as a reminder of just how much you appreciate one another. This simple task is sure to spread kindness and leave each member of the family feeling loved and appreciated.

Write a thank you letter

Saying thank you is one of the easiest ways to spread kindness. Ask your kids to select someone special in their life, who doesn’t live at home, and write a thank you letter. It may be a relative, teacher or best friend, whoever it is, encourage them to write from the heart! This is a great way to practise gratitude and is sure to leave both the sender and receiver feeling extra warm and fuzzy.

For an extra kind gesture, why not cook up a batch of our Healthy Living Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes and gift one with your letter!

Fill out our kindness acrostic poem!

We’ve made kindness at home easier than ever with this downloadable acrostic poem. Select someone in your household and write something you love about them that begins with each letter of the word “KINDNESS”. Hit the button below to get started and don’t forget to print and hang it somewhere the whole family can see when you’re done.

With Halloween just hiding around the corner, we’ve rounded up some creative Halloween decorations for you and the kids to make (with surprising objects), along with some delicious and nutritious trick-or-treat snacks to be devoured by all.

Spooky DIY Decorations

1. Toilet Roll Bats

What you’ll need:

• Empty toilet rolls (as many as you want or have)
• Black and/or coloured paint and paint brush
• OR 2-3 sheets of black, white and/or coloured paper (try to use recycled paper or what you already have around the house)
• Pencil
• Googly eyes (if you don’t have these, paint the eyes or use paper to cut some out)
• Kid friendly scissors
• Sticky tape
• String
• Glue

Let’s get going!

1. Either paint your toilet rolls in any colour, stand, and let dry completely, or cover your toilet rolls in black or coloured paper. Stick down with glue or sticky tape.
2. With a pencil, draw some bat wings and cut them out with scissors. Stick the wings onto the middle of the toilet roll with glue.
3. With paper, cut small circles for eyes, and cut out teeth or fangs with white paper, stick them on with glue. If you have them, stick your googly eyes on now.
4. Cut any length of string and sticky tape one end to the bottom, inside of your toilet roll.
5. Hang your spooky bats wherever to begin the Halloween fun…

Teaching kids about sustainability

Sustainability is a broad and popular topic, but when it comes to teaching kids about it, we can keep it simple to help them understand the impact we have on the earth and how we can make it better for future generations. There are lots of ways kids can learn about sustainability, however getting them involved with hands-on activities is a great place to start!

Here’s some fun activities and ways to help kids learn about sustainability.

Recycling and sorting garbage

Labeling bins at home and in the classroom for example, can help kids learn about what can and can’t be recycled. It also helps form good habits for the future. Sorting the garbage and explaining what can be composted and what is ‘general waste’ is a good way to encourage kids to think about how food scraps can help the environment in compost and limit food waste.

Plant a tree

Planting a tree in your garden or even a community garden is one of the best but simple things you can do for the environment, and is a great activity for the weekend. Trees improve the air quality around us due to the oxygen they produce. Other fun and educational gardening activities that encourage sustainability include making a worm farm, creating a vegetable patch, or planting bee-friendly plants.

Hold a garage sale

Explaining how garage sales work, and getting the kids involved in the process helps to encourage not just kids but people of all ages to reuse items that are safe to do so. This is also a perfect opportunity to encourage action within your community and create conversation about sustainability with your kids.

Reusable grocery bags

A very simple and powerful way to encourage a regular habit, showing kids the importance of bringing your own reusable bags with you when grocery shopping (or any type of shopping for that matter). You could make this their regular responsibility on the shopping trip, so they feel in charge, and gain an understanding of how this reduces the use of single waste plastics and is a more environmentally friendly option.

Nothing says ‘I love you, Mum!’ more than a handmade gift or card, so we’ve got you covered with a couple of fun, thoughtful and quirky craft ideas to give to your loved one this Mother’s Day. Plus, a delicious brownie recipe that is sure to put a smile on everyone’s dial.

‘Heart in Hand’ pop-up card

These cards are easy to make (kids may need assistance with cutting) and come with a love-filled surprise too. A pop-up heart within the card!

What you’ll need:

• 2 x colours of scrap, A4 paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Black pen
• Pencil

Method:

1. Fold your A4 piece of paper in half and place the hand that will be traced palm down, close to the bottom of the paper, with the either side of the palm touching the folded edge. Trace around the edges and each finger with a pencil. Cut along the tracing line to be left with the hands cut out. When you unfold the paper, you’ll have two hands connected like a butterfly.
2. Now for the heart, give a guide to the card maker as to how big the heart should be (should be big enough to cover the size of both palms in the cut out), and let them trace the outline of a heart onto a different coloured piece of paper. Cut out the heart with scissors.
3. Fold the heart in half vertically, then in half horizontally. A good way to guide your card maker to do this is by drawing faint pencil lines for fold lines, then rubbing them out once folded. Then, fold the hands cut out in half vertically down the middle.
4. Now for the special message! Write the message on the heart cut-out in black pen or whatever colour stands out against the heart colour of choice.
5. This might be a step for Dad or the card making supervisor… Glue the bottom half of the heart cutout (the pointy end) and stick that down onto the palms of the hands cut-out so both vertical folds line up with each other. And voila! Fold the hands in half and unfold to reveal the pop-up heart.

With Easter just around the corner, we’ve put together some fun Easter craft ideas and activities to keep you and your kids busy over the holidays – aside from the easter egg hunts!

1. Make toilet roll bunnies

Decorate the house with some homemade bunnies. What you’ll need:

• 1 x toilet roll
• Coloured paper (try recycling paper or materials from around the house)
• Items to decorate, like googly eyes, buttons and jute string
• Glue
• Scissors

Wrap the centres of old toilet rolls with coloured paper (or fabric), glue it down and tuck away any overlapping edges into the ends of the roll.

Make feet and ears out of leftover paper and use the decorations to make the nose, eyes and whiskers!

Yoga is an excellent activity for kids, to help improve balance, strength and endurance. But it’s not only the physical benefits that make it so great, it can also help to improve focus and memory, reduce stress and increase self-esteem.

It might feel daunting if this isn’t something you and your family have tried before. So we’ve partnered with The Karma Class, to bring you a special yoga class that your kids can follow at home, plus some simple tips on how you can create a special place for the whole family to practise yoga.

With all the stresses we’ve endured over the last couple of years, it might be helpful to bring some balance back to your worlds, as kids return back to school, and perhaps you are returning back to work.

To start off, here are some tips to create a dedicated yoga space in your home for you and your children.

• Invite your child to participate in creating the space.
• You don’t need a huge amount of space. De-clutter the area of toys and potentially dangerous or precious objects. Move furniture if you need to.
• Remove any distractions – you want to create a ‘sacred and special’ space so that when you step onto the mat the focus is on the class, your breath and body.
• Ideally, each person practicing should have their own mat (you can use a large blanket or beach towel if you don’t have a mat, but ensure it’s soft and comfortable!) and anyone not practicing needs to stay out of the room – no matter how much you love them!
• Create a calming atmosphere. Light a candle (a safe distance away) or place some flowers where their beauty can be seen and enjoyed. Invite your child to make suggestions and to add something that is special to them, like a precious rock or even their favourite teddy.
• When the class is over, you can roll up your mats and return the space to what it was if you need to.

Now you’re ready to join JJ from The Karma Class, as she takes you on an adventure into your magical breath and powerful body. This 20 minute yoga class is designed for kids aged 3 – 7 years old, to do in the comfort of their own homes.

The Karma Class is passionate about bringing health and wellbeing tools – based on yoga, breath and mindfulness – into the lives of our youth, in an attempt to stem the growing tide of mental health challenges. The Karma Class deliver weekly kids yoga classes to pre and primary schools, and a Professional Development workshop A Karma Classroom, for early childhood and primary school teachers, which is designed for them to easily weave yoga, breath and mindfulness into their classrooms every day.

With a little bit of preparation and time, cooking with your kids is a fun, wholesome and educational activity to do together. Not only does it introduce them to the idea of making nutritious food at home, from a recipe or from scratch, it also reveals the world of taste, flavour and texture in cooking. All of the recipes featured in this article have all those qualities including a whole bunch of fun…

We want to share some tips and ideas for cooking with your kids and how you can include them in making delicious and nutritious meals at home with you.

Preparation is key

Once you’ve decided what recipe you’re going to use, try and prepare the ingredients that you’ll need for the cooking process. Chop what you need to chop, and portion out the ingredients so when it’s time to use them, they’re ready to go. As well as the ingredients, get all your cooking utensils ready too. Remember to keep sharp knives out of kid’s reach.

PRO TIP: Set aside extra time for the preparation, that way when you’re ready to start cooking, everything is prepped and more time can be devoted to the meal creation!
This Berrylicious Frozen Yoghurt Bark is a perfect recipe to start with as you’re getting used to cooking with your kids. There is a couple of hours to wait when it’s in the freezer, so why not make another small recipe while you wait?

Let your kids choose the recipe

kids are most likely going to be more excited making something which they picked out themselves. Choose a couple of recipes, 2-3, which you can give your kids as options to choose from. 2-3 is a good amount as it isn’t so many that they get overwhelmed, but enough to have variety. These recipes below from our Healthy Living recipes are all great options for kids to choose from.

Banana Chia Pancakes are usually a crowd pleaser… As are these Chocolate Date Caramel Cups and this Hidden Zucchini and Chocolate Loaf.

Show how food waste can be reduced (depending on age)

It’s great to be able to show kids easy ways to be more sustainable and that making new habits doesn’t need to be a huge deal or time consuming either.  Once you’ve cooked with your kids a couple of times and you feel like the time is right, introduce small, fun and interesting ways foods can be completely used to avoid food waste. For example, if you’re cooking with carrots, instead of throwing out the leafy carrot tops, chop them up and use them in salads, sauces or for garnishes.

In these Mexican Chicken Salad Tortilla Bowls, when chopping the coriander, use the leaves and the stems for a flavour bomb and more texture. This is also reducing the amount you may throw out afterwards.

Taste and touch the food!

Encourage your kids to use their hands and taste the food you’re cooking with (hygienically, of course). It’s important that kids understand that cooking shouldn’t be a chore, but more of a fun, interesting and healthy habit. Letting your kids taste all the flavours and experience different textures of food can open their imaginations and be beneficial to their openness to new food experiences in the future. Remember to have fun and embrace the mess that comes with it all!

These Spinach and Quinoa Patties are perfect for mixing and making with your hands.

Summer has finally arrived here in Australia, which means there’s no better time to learn all about hydration for your children.

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