First Lady get Chicago moving!

On February 28, I had the chance to cover a big Let's Move! event in Chicago. Let's Move! is First Lady Michelle Obama's intitiative to get kids healthy through physical fitness and better eating. The event in Chicago marked the three-year anniversary of Let's Move! and kicked off the Active Schools campaign.

Before the event even started, I interviewed the Secretary of Education Mr. Arne Duncan. I spoke to him about education cuts, and why it is important to balance homework and physical education.  I spoke to Mr. Duncan in the media room right before he went onstage to speak in front of the media, teachers, and students who came out to hear him and the other athletes and notable people speak.

In the interview, Secretary Duncan explains why it's important to be physically active during the school day, why it's important to balance homework and physical education, and how looming budget cuts could impact kids and teachers across the country.

Watch my interview with Secretary Duncan below:



After the event, I interviewed Gabby Douglas, the gold medalist in gymnastics in London, Ashton Eaton, the gold medalist and world record holder in the decathlon in London, and Bo Jackson, who played both professional baseball and football at the same time.

Gabby Douglas spoke about how it is important to be active and how you have to train to gain success. She trains for 4 and a half to 5 hours a day! Check out that interview, too!




You can find out more about the Let's Move! Active Schools event by reading my story on the Scholastic News Kids Press Corps website! And learn more about Let's Move! by checking out the stories my fellow Kid Reporters have written about the program.

—Kid Reporter Natalie Wexler

Let's Dirty it Up!

It was the same garden, the same red and white checked tablecloth, and the same hostess — none other than First Lady Michelle Obama — but this time something was different. Instead of the rowdy crowd of kids miraculously unveiling the colorful arrays of different veggies and herbs being pulled out of the ground and planted into the kids’ stomach, this time there were new herbs and veggies for a new batch of fourth and fifth graders from Bancroft and Tubman to plant into the ground. The kids and staff together planted the White House garden. 

I was very lucky to cover this event with the First Lady. I had been here in the fall to watch the amazing event of the harvesting festival. It was pretty cool seeing where all the plants start out and what they look like when they are little and when they grow into ripe vegetables. 

This time, though, I was doubly excited for this event, because I was going to talk to the First Lady herself! This was the closest opportunity I’d probably get to ever get the inside scoop on this event. I was boiling over with excitement. There were three other kid reporters there from different publications, and they were all going to interview the First Lady with me. 

After the kids completed the planting and took a group photo, it was time to have the interview with the First Lady. I clutched my questions for her excitedly. Our guide, Katie, guided us to the Children’s Garden, a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson in 1968. It looked like a little park and it had footprints and handprints embedded into the ground: the footprints of the former President’s children and grandchildren. I learned that it was not open to public and was probably the only time we could see it. It was peaceful and the perfect place to be when you want to have some space. It was like a natural children’s playground.

Kid reporters from Scholastic, Time for Kids, Ranger Rick, and National Geographic Kids waited excitedly for the First Lady to come. The First Lady finally walked in and each of the kid reporters got to shake her hand and introduce himself or herself. When we sat down it was no time at all when the youngest kid reporter, Helen, started to ask her questions about the bees and the honey and what they do with them. I learned that the honey from the beehive would probably be used as gifts or even in Mrs. Obama’s tea.

Mrs. Obama answered my questions, which were about Let’s Move and obstacles to eating healthy. The First Lady told the group that lots of children face difficulties or obstacles to eating healthy because they maybe just don’t like vegetables. She also said that her advice to her kids would be to try everything because your taste buds won’t mature if you don’t try a variety of different foods. Some other questions arose to how we should eat our meals and how we should have more meals at home, and how we should have a balanced diet. 

During the interview, Michelle Obama stressed the importance of passing on information about eating right and doing the right things. “You’re not here just to plant good vegetables; you’re here to pass the information on.”

Check out my video report and interview with Michelle Obama from the Let's Move garden planting!

—Kid Reporter Alexandra Zhang 

A Trip to Veggie U

How to live a healthy lifestyle one seed at a time.

Last week, I visited the Culinary Vegetable Institute on a farm in Milan, Ohio. As I walked up to the building, I passed a large, beautiful tester garden full of new and different types of chives, basil, and mint. (Did you know that chocolate mint is an herb? Me neither!)

The smells were amazing, and as layered as the colors. Inside I met Barbara Jones, director of Veggie U. She explained the non-profit organization to me.

The whole thing started when a group of professional cooks gathered at the farm for a dinner. They began talking about how they wanted to give back to the community. Someone—and no one remembers who—brought up that children weren’t eating vegetables anymore. Maybe kids would eat better if they knew where vegetables came from and could get more excited about it, they thought.

The hope was to reduce the ever-increasing obesity rate of kids in the U.S. by teaching them to grow, cook, and eat their own vegetables. These culinary experts wanted to show children how to eat healthy, without giving up flavor. That was the start of Veggie U.

The goal of Veggie U evolved into giving as many kids as possible a hands-on vegetable growing and eating experience.Originally only in Ohio, Veggie U has now spread to 24 states around America with 1,800 classrooms participating.

The classroom program is designed for fourth graders and is fairly simple. Students are supplied with seeds, an overhead light, containers, and even worms. They plant the seeds provided in three different types of soil and record the growing process. Students are also each given a “mystery seed” to plant and later identify.

Everyone is taught to harvest, clean, cut, and prepare the plants. The kit costs $450 per classroom.

In the struggle to reduce obesity in children, Veggie U is making a difference, one seed at a time.

—Kayla Gough

PHOTO: Kid Reporter Kayla Gough in the test garden at Veggie U in Milan, Ohio. (Photo Courtesy Kayla Gough)

Healthy Eating Homestyle

How does your family stay healthy? Send comments below!

Eating healthy has always been a top priority for my family. Every Saturday we visit our local Farmers Market. We also all work in the vegetable patch my dad started four years ago at the community garden, and we are part of a farm share, where we can get meat and eggs.

I’ve learned that eating healthy doesn’t always mean doing without sweet breakfast cereals or beverages. It just means finding other, just as good, food.

It’s awesome to visit the Farmers Market. We have gotten to know the farmers and we get to see other people from our community. In other words, we get to buy delicious food while visiting with friends!

As part of a farm share, my family gets some of the crops as they are harvested. Depending on the season, we get different food. For example, in the summer we get kale and—my personal favorite—watermelon. In the winter we tend to get granola and meat.

My mom loves to make apple pie during the fall, and guess where we get the best apples? At the market!

Whether you love helping pick out the fruits that will go in your lunch, or you like to get involved in your community, everyone loves the farmers market.

In our home garden, I especially love when we grow tomatoes. We are really successful with those. In the summer my friends and I help collect the hundreds of juicy, red, vitamin-c-filled fruits. We eat them all the time after that. We can put them in anything: salads, sandwiches, salsa, and sometimes tomato sauce!

We plant cucumbers that turn out really big and really good. We plant lettuce and basil, which we always turn into pesto. We have a really big chard crop every year as well.

I have loved broccoli since I was 4 years old and we grow that as well. This year we are growing cilantro, too. We even have mint leaves that we can turn into a really good tea. Later this afternoon I am planting rosemary for us to use in tomato sauce later this year.

I enjoy growing our garden and shopping in the market. We get to have fun and stay fit and healthy. I have learned important skills and information about food as well.

I also want to share a recipe with you.

My Favorite Salad

Ingredients: Lettuce, Tomato, Half a Cucumber, Olive Oil, Vinegar

How to make it:

    1. Wash your lettuce, tomato, and cucumber half.

    2. Cut your lettuce leaves into a bite size for your salad. Make sure you off cut all rotten parts of the leaves.

    3. Cut the tops off of your tomato and then cut the tomato into slices.

    4. Peel cucumber half and cut it into slices.

    5. Put tomato slices, lettuce leaves, and cucumber slices in a salad bowl.

    6. Season the salad with olive oil and vinegar.

    7. Enjoy!

—Ana Deluca-Mayne

PHOTO: Ana's homemade salad, using ingredients from her garden! (Photo Courtesy Ana Deluca-Mayne)

From Garbage to Fertilizer

Using compost for a healthy garden.

Composting is when you recycle organic food materials. It returns the compounds that are in the waste to the earth, where bacteria break them down and reuse them. But that’s just the official definition.

Basically, by composting, you recycle useful plant parts turning garbage into fertile dirt. That's what happens in the woods for example as foliage dies and decays. By collecting organic waste you can speed up this process and make your garden healthier. Once the waste is turned into compost, you put it in the ground around the plants.

Also, the waste you use in the compost does not get hauled off to a dump site, so, besides improving your farming method, you decrease the amount of rubbish you throw away.

My family has a big compost pile in our backyard garden. We use it to create organic fertilizer for the soil.

In our garden, we grow herbs, fruits and vegetables. We grow most of our own fruits and vegetables, so to keep them alive, healthy, and organic, we need fresh fertilizers.

Not all our compost is made of scraps from the kitchen. We also use another basic organic ingredient—horse manure. Yuck, I know, but it helps a lot!

What does your family do to live a healthy lifestyle? Send in your comments below!

—Lily Haffey

PHOTO: Kid Reporter Lily Haffey works organic waste into her family's compost pile. (Photo courtesy Lily Haffey)

Try It! You'll Like It!

Every change your mind about a food you thought you hated? Send you comments below!

The thought of meeting up with my biggest enemy—cauliflower—at the house of chef and author Rozanne Gold didn't make my taste buds too happy. But I went anyway. After all, I was on assignment.

I meet Rozanne and her 14-year-old daughter, Shayna DePersia in their kitchen in Brooklyn, New York. They are the co-authors of the book Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs.

I learned a lot from these two fresh food advocates. For example, Rozanne and Shayna taught me a trick for how to add flavor to Carrot-Ginger-Tomato Soup, which is on page 40 of Eat Fresh Food.

If the soup—or any other dish—isn't gingery enough for you, take a fresh ginger root, peel, and grate it. Put the grated pieces into a paper towel and start squeezing over a bowl. You will be amazed at how much ginger juice comes out! Voila! Your soup is done! Bon-appétit!

After I interviewed Rozanne, she told me that we could dig into the food she had already prepared as examples from her cookbook. Even though I was on the job, I felt like I had suddenly been invited to a Thanksgiving dinner with my friends and family.

We sat down to wonderful Watermelon Lemonade, scrumptious Cinnamon-Sugar Wontons, and great Grape-and-Pignoli Breakfast Cake. And then there was the cauliflower.

Little did I know that I would be face to face with the dreaded cauliflower and no way out.  There in front of me was a pasta dish called Mac-and-Cheese With Cauliflower and Creamy Red Pepper Sauce. And guess what? It looked magnificent!

When I tasted it, I went wild! I had met the enemy, and it was…good. In fact, it was the most delicious vegetable dish ever!

That day I learned that before you turn your nose up at something, you should try it. You may just surprise yourself. Rozanne inspired me to eat better and from now on I will only have a bag of potato chips in an emergency.

Have you tried any new foods lately? Send in your fun food story below!

—Grace McManus