EatPlayGrow™ Curriculum
EatPlayGrow™ is a new early childhood health curriculum and the first to be federally approved by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC). In partnership with the NIH, Children’s Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) adapted the We Can!®obesity prevention program (originally for ages 8-13) to create EatPlayGrow™ for use with children ages 6 and younger and their adult caregivers. This curriculum combines the latest science and research from the NIH with CMOM’s holistic arts and literacy-based approach to engage families and adults who work with young children with creative programs and consistent health messages in informal and formal learning environments.
Bring EatPlayGrow™ to your community!
The curriculum offers a series of 11 healthy lifestyle lessons with hands-on activities, essential facts and simple strategies that make healthy choices fun and easy to include in daily routines—at home, at school or in the community. Each educational lesson is aligned with the appropriate National Pre-K Health Performance Standards and addresses the multiple ways children learn through storytelling, art-making, music and movement activities to teach the importance of making positive choices in the areas that most affect health: nutrition, physical activity and sleep.
Designed for use by families, educators, home-based childcare providers, community organizers, health advocates, librarians and others who work with young children, the EatPlayGrow™ curriculum can be easily adapted into family life and existing programming, or stand alone as its own health unit!
CMOM offers Professional Development trainings at the museum and a special series of webinars with the NIH starting in January 2014. Click here for more information.
Download the EatPlayGrow™ curriculum and start learning now!
CMOM’s National Outreach Dissemination Partners
As part of its EatSleepPlay™ health initiative, CMOM has tested the EatPlayGrow™ curriculum with families and caregivers. By leveraging and connecting CMOM’s relationships with the National Head Start Association, Association of Children’s Museums, and Family Place Libraries–in addition to the NIH’s 1,000 We Can!® community partner sites–and as a Let’s Move! Museum partner, the EatSleepPlay™ initiative will be replicated through existing national networks with tremendous reach at the grassroots level in order to improve health and education services in high-need communities.
The following partners will help CMOM disseminate the EatPlayGrow™ curriculum free of charge throughout the country to their constituent organizations:
Association of Children’s Museums
National Head Start Association
Contact slim@cmom.org to learn how to join the EatPlayGrow™ a dissemination network.
The EatPlayGrow™: curriculum has been developed with the generous support of the Laurie M.Tisch Illumination Fund; the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency; W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Goldman Sachs Gives; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; United Way of New York City; Walmart Foundation; Joan Ganz Cooney Fund at the New York Community Trust; and Amherst Foundation.
