EYN Partnership presents fresh ideas at Childcare Expo Manchester!

27th June 2018

Childcare Expo is associated with lots of fun, colour and activity. And the latest show was true to form, proving that Manchester is a passionate city where the early years are concerned!

If you follow the Early Years Nutrition Partnership’s social media channels or newsletter, you’ll know just how much of a highlight Childcare Expo is on our calendar.

Following the success of our first 2018 Childcare Expo, the very snowy stint at Olympia London back in March, we’d been counting down the days until it headed up north. So, the EYN Partnership team arrived bright and early to transfer Stand G44 into a healthy eating oasis, and to set up our activities in the brand-new Health and Wellbeing Zone. Kudos to the Childcare Expo team for introducing this Zone – we all know how important good health is in the early years, and it was great to have such a focus on this with us and our colleagues, eQe, ERIC, Collar and Cuffs and Early Years SEN, also coordinating activities in the Zone.

Visitors to the Zone got stuck into planting their very own pea seeds and colouring the artwork adorning our section of the wall. The suggestions for the worksheet activity of naming healthy food characters were also brilliant – it’s fair to say creativity flowed – watch this space for some of our favourites (Carrot Vorderman and Fishtina Aqualera, anyone?) and competition winners!

We were joined by our friend Ben Faulks (perhaps better known as Mr Bloom on CBeebies), much to the delight and surprise of many of the delegates! Ben did a brilliant job teaching people  how to play The Healthy Eating Song on the ukulele, and we’re quite sure they’ve all gone away with the song ingrained in their memory forever! Our EYN Pea and our Registered Nutrition Professionals, Nicola Calder, who’s based locally in Greater Manchester, and Karen Bone, who covers nearby Cheshire, tried their hand at learning the ukulele too!

The Healthy Eating Song is best performed loud and proud, so we loved having groups of super enthusiastic practitioners come together to learn it. If you received one of our goodie bags that included the song CD, send us a clip of your early years setting singing and dancing away!

But after all that music, it wasn’t a case of needing some peas (!) and quiet, as nothing could stop our EYN Pea from meeting everyone there on the day. Thanks for all the amazing Pea selfies – keep sending them in and you might see them reposted on our Twitter page…

We had a brilliant time exhibiting alongside so many others passionate about the early years and bringing The Healthy Eating Song to more people, and we can’t wait to do it all over again, in Coventry this September!

And in the meantime, remember you can also find the EYN Partnership on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube! And if you haven’t yet signed up to our newsletter, please do so here!

Early Years Nutrition Partnership will be exhibiting at Childcare Expo Midlands! Registration is now open!