Our family has 4 ways we use to increase water intake, not only for the kids, but for everyone.

1. My son take a refillable water bottle to school every day. I use sugar-free flavor enhancer drops (ie. Mio, Dasani, etc) to make it more appealing to him. The refillable water bottles are also a size that's perfect for him (easy to grip and not too heavy), and in colours he loves.

2. We also keep several (individual size) bottles of water in the fridge door at all times. This makes water quick and easy to grab anytime, even for... Continue reading

Water bottles look boring. Why can't the companies make one use water bottles a smaller size, interesting looking, and sell them in cases like the full size but not at expensive prices.

My five year old hates drinking water - HATES drinking water.

I've tried several different ways to increase his intake - however, most recently I think I've finally found the perfect trick that works for his competitive personality!

By simply placing a few star stickers on his water bottle, I've managed to challenge him to reach each sticker 'level' by three key times of his school day. The challenge is to consume enough water to reach the first star sticker by his first snack time, the second sticker by lunch time and the final sticker at the bottom of the... Continue reading

With DS swim team we have visited many recreation/aquatic centres and the ones with water bottle filling stations help all of us (athlete and parent) stay hydrated.

At home to change things up a little we bought a Soda Steam machine. We typically just add a little lemon to the water but we drink a lot of water. We weren't sure if we would use it initially so bought at the warehouse sale in December but the amount of use it gets has made the purchase worthwhile.

At home I don't offer (read: never purchase) pop or juice so it... Continue reading

The teachers all got together to plan activities for a full week all about water to spark all of the children's interest.

On Monday, we started to talk about what we drink at home. We asked all the children what do they drink and what are their favorite drinks? We took all the numbers and created a graph that the children colored. We also introduced our family water challenge to the children, so they could take their lessons of how water is good for you home with them. The challenge was to drink only water and milk for one week.... Continue reading

In December, the "Water Does Wonders" leaders at St. Christopher Catholic School created posters with the grade 6 class to raise awareness of water and what it does for our bodies compared to other beverages students choose to drink at school. Students chose to place these posters in all areas of the school but especially around the water fountain areas. In January students are in the beginning stages of creating a presentation that will be presented to individual classes to raise awareness of just how much sugar is in the beverages that we drink on a regular basis with the... Continue reading

They then ran an awareness campaign about the benefits of drinking water as a healthy alternative to surgary drinks. The campaign included creating an installation in the display cabinet in the school's front foyer showing various drinks and the number of cubes of sugar they contain, reading the Healthy Kids, "Did... Continue reading

In the month of November, the leadership team attended a parent evening at the school related to positive mental heath. They had parents guess the amount of sugar in each drink that was displayed. Parents filled out a ballot with their guesses and then ballots were drawn for prizes at the end of the evening. A family won a "watter bottle" prize pack.

In December, our team went around to all primary and junior classrooms to talk about the sugar content in various drinks that are commonly in lunch boxes or seen around the school. Classes completed a worksheet related... Continue reading

In November, we displayed the Water Does Wonders Posters for the parents and caregivers to see. We wanted to introduce them to the water initiative and were present to answer any questions they may have. Our next step was displaying "What Flavour is your water?" on our bulletin board. It included a graph with four headings: mint, lemon, cucumber and berries. We encouraged the children to decorate water droplets which could be found in our creative area. Once the children decorated their water droplet we gave them some tape to place their water droplet in the column representing their favourite... Continue reading