Why our Organic Homemade Snacks and Lunches are Essential to our School Program

At Hundred Hills, food preparation is more than a practical task; it’s a meaningful part of the day and a cherished ritual. Guided by Ms Katie Rose, children engage in transforming simple ingredients into nourishing meals for their classmates. Along the way, they cultivate a respect for the rhythms and rituals that surround mealtime.

By providing snacks and meals for the whole school, we create a shared experience that supports more than just nutrition, it nurtures connection and community. Meals are offered in a calm, reverent environment that encourages children to slow down, express gratitude, and engage in the beautiful social and sensory experience of eating together.

Through this daily rhythm, children learn not only about food, but about service, cooperation, and responsibility. They see that preparing and sharing meals is a way of caring for others. That it’s an act of love. In this way, food becomes a living part of the curriculum that is deeply integrated into the children’s social-emotional development, sense of rhythm, and relationship to the earth.

By including snacks and meals for everyone, we simplify the day for families, create equity across classrooms, and deepen the sense that this is a school where we take care of one another.

An in depth perspective on our food philosophy from Katie Rose:

For sun and rain,
For grass and grain,
For all who toil on seed and soil,
That we may eat our daily food,
We give our love and thanks to you.
-Unknown, Traditional Blessing

I grew up in a family where we picked from the garden and made beautiful meals with what we had, but we did not say grace. There was a daily, unconscious practice of expressing awe about the successes of the gardener, marveling at the taste and beauty of the food, and, of course, always thanking the cook (my mother, most of the time). It was not until my daughter was in her first year of her Waldorf education that I realized how hungry I was to form our own meaningful tradition around mealtimes. One night, in her third week of school, we sat down to eat as a family. I was about to take my first bite of food when our three-year-old daughter used both of her hands to stop my fork mid-flight. She told us to sit like kings and queens, asked for a candle to be lit, and then wholeheartedly sang a beautiful blessing of thanks for our food. My husband and I sat, dumbfounded and in complete awe, as she thanked Father Sun and Mother Earth. In one fell swoop, she revolutionized our dinner routine and brought a meaningful, fitting grace to our table. When our son began his Waldorf education, he instructed us to put our hands on our hearts and added his own beautiful lines to this important moment of mealtime reverence. Nine years later, our mealtime blessing has evolved a bit, but the four of us still say it every time we sit for dinner. In the grown-up world where the clock never stops, I have found that this smallest of rituals brings an incredible amount of fulfillment to the repetitive nature of the workweek. It also brings healthy predictability and tradition into the home for your child.

After a long day, saying our blessing together grounds us. It reminds us that we are here on the earth, we are together, and we have what we need.

This first week of school has been full of wonder as we played and explored in the grassy meadow, under the trees, and along the trails in the botanic garden. We encountered lizards, ladybugs, ants, and crickets. Beginning outside has been marvelous, and we have already begun practicing traditions that will take root in our new, dear school’s culture when we move into the classrooms. We gather for every snack and lunch at a wooden table that sits in the shade of tall sycamores and cottonwoods. There are flowers in the center of the table, and napkins for all.

The teachers lead us in our blessing, and each time we do this, the children are learning beautiful words and gestures. Most importantly, the children are learning to practice gratitude.

As we all express our thanks for our food, scrub jays and squirrels watch from the branches.

This week we have munched and crunched apples, lettuce, sweet peppers, cucumbers, carrots, pears, melons, nuts, and seeds. Children are drawn to the table to help: this week, they have pressed masa into fresh tortillas, shared a pot of soup, learned to set the table, cleared plates, and brushed the table clean. As the days grow cooler and shorter, we will cook with winter squash, pumpkins, leafy greens, and root vegetables, but our mealtime blessing will remain constant through the shifting seasons. Listen and watch your child around mealtimes, and you might notice your child taking a little pause before dinner. This is a tiny bit of school coming home to you, a new tradition carried home in your child’s heart.

By Katie Rose Isaacson Hames
Kitchen and Garden Steward