Nutrition

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2003 : April : 3

Nutrition
By Kathy

We did this unit early last fall and had a great time with it. We did a lot of cooking--almost every week we made something to go along with the different food groups. The kids absolutely loved that--and wolfed down some
really "healthy" foods that they probably wouldn't have touched otherwise.
From somewhere I got little workbooks called "Pyramid Cafe" with lots of neat activities. I had a tape with some songs--and made up some of my own. (I think I posted one of them on this board back in September or October.)
We had a contest for three weeks trying to get our "Five a Day." (Fruits and Vegetables)

I sent home a chart for them to keep track of what they ate each week and they we recorded results on a class graph. One interesting side effect of this project is that two of my students (brothers)never brought their charts back. Yet that activity caused their mom to really look at the sugar level in some of the fruit drinks. I found out months later that she actually made some significant dietary changes as a result of that project. (And here I thought they weren't getting anything out of it!!)

I did relays with the four food groups where students would place the food picture on the correct part of the pyramid. We created a sample menu that included something from all the food groups. I made a huge pyramid and had the students make foods and paste them in the right spot. We did "tasting tests of new foods.

There are some good sites on the internet dealing with nutrition and digestion: Dole 5 a Day is one. Just plug: Nutrition and Kids into Google and you will come up with lots of sites. You can browse them and see what works with you.

That's all my tired brain can think of right now. Hope you have fun with this unit!!