NURSERY children in Wrexham have been learning about the food cycle - and that not everything comes from the local supermarket!

Mother Goose Nursery, in Penley, has worked hard to gain its Tiny Tums Award – awarded for the careful planning of menus for one to four year-olds.

Staff continue to look for ways they can educate children in the importance of a good healthy balanced diet, along with making sure that they know about exercise through play as part of the Healthy Pre-schools Scheme.

Mother Goose Nursery has an in house cook, Sue Ellison, who ensures that all the food that the nursery delivers is of a high standard and caters towards all the children’s dietary needs.

Sue makes sure that, where possible, she can source all the food that the nursery gets locally.

The children even help by planting and gardening to see what can grow to use in the nursery menus throughout the year.

Sarah Love, Mother Goose Nursery Manager, said: “The children have so much fun and learn masses by planting the fruit and vegetables that we grow in our nursery garden - many asking if the strawberries are ready daily.

“It also gives them a sense of pride when they are eating what they have grown, telling the other children that they have planted and watering them to make them grow for us to eat,” she says.

She explains how the nursey works on a three-week menu with each set of menus altered during the different seasons.

Ms Love continued: “We ask the children what they would like to eat and feed that back into our menu - we have had a lot of strange requests! And we must explain that they may not be tasty and nice together!”

Sue, along with the nursery staff, also enjoy baking with the children and preparing nursery tea with them.

“As a nursery we want to show them from a young age that cooking is fun and plays a big part of life in what we eat and put into our bodies to remain fit and well,” says Sue.

“Mother Goose Nursery is committed to ensure that we always serve a high standard of food to our children and take great satisfaction knowing that the children in our care are getting a good healthy balance diet when they come to nursery.

“We are educating them for the future.”

For more information about Mother Goose Nursery, go to http://www.mothergoosenursery.org.uk/ or call 01948 830003.