Food Pyramid
Fruits and Vegetables
Exercise Cards
Exercise Mats
Healthy Food -vs- Junk Food File Folder Game
Fruit and Vegetable Counters
Newspapers
Grocery Store Ads
Cookbooks
Choosey
Cooking Utensils (child appropriate)
Measuring Cups
Measuring Spoons
Empty Healthy Food containers (Cereal, Oatmeal, etc..)
Rolling Pin
Scales
Strawberry Basket
Colored Sand
Apron
Cupcake Liners
Cupcake Pan
1. What is Nutrition mean? What does eating healthy mean?
2. What foods are healthy? What foods are considered junk foods? Chart the responses.
3. What is the food pyramid? Show pictures of the food pyramid. What foods do you see? What foods do you like that you see on there?
4. What are the food groups on the food pyramid?
5. What other ways to keep our bodies healthy? Exercising, sleeping, drinking water, and milk etc..
6. What is a balanced meal? Discuss this at circle time and all week during breakfast and lunch. What foods are we eating? Where are they on the food pyramid? What is a serving?
Turn the Dramatic Play area into a Grocery Store. Have the children come up with a name for the Grocery Store and write on a poster board. Have the children cut up Grocery Store ads to make their own Ad for the store.
1. Sort healthy -vs- junk foods
2. Use the Fruit and Vegetable sorters to sort colors, to pattern, to group, etc..
3. Cut healthy foods from Grocery Store Ads
4. Make own food pyramid.
5. Complete exercise cards.
6. Play a memory game with food cards.
7. Weigh different foods on the scales.
8. Measure water and sensory objects with measuring cups and spoons.
9. Fishing for Good Foods- Children can cut pictures from magazines from the five basic food groups. Have the children glue these pictures onto a fish shape cut from construction paper. Slip a paper clip onto the front of each fish. Make a fishing pole from a dowel and tie a magnet onto the end of the string. Label five small buckets with the name/picture of each food group. Have the children try to catch a fish and encourage them to decide which group the food belongs to and then put the fish in the correct bucket.
10. Vegetables- Questioning: I want to eat this vegetable. What do you think I should do to prepare it? If I want to cut it, what should I use?
(hide the pepper) Do you remember what color the pepper is? What parts of the pepper do you think we can eat? What parts can’t we eat? Can you think of any vegetables with seeds we can eat? Can you think of any vegetables with skins we can’t eat? If we all wanted to taste a piece, how many pieces would we need? How is this pepper (red) different from this pepper (green)? How is this pepper different from a carrot/potato? What are some of the ways we can eat peppers? (use other kinds of foods)
1. Refer to CHOOSEY CD’s
2. The Shape-Up Song
Sung to ‘Farmer in the Dell’
We’re jumping up and down
We’re jumping up and down
We’re getting lots of exercise
We’re jumping up and down.
We bend and touch our toes…..
We kick our legs up high……
We jog around the room…….
We wiggle our whole body….
We stretch up to the sky…….
3. Basic Food Groups
Here are the food groups:
Dairy, bread, and meat
And don’t forest that vegetables
Are important for you to eat.
Have a food from each food group
Each and every day,
And you’ll grow strong and healthy -
Good nutrition is the way!
4. Vegetable Soup
(game like London Bridges)
We are making vegetable soup
Vegetable soup, Vegetable soup
We are making vegetable soup
Now put in the (vegetable of choice).
Take the ________and stir it up,
Stir it up, stir it up,
Take the ________and stir it up
While making vegetable soup.
5. Growing Song
(tune: Are you Sleeping?)
We need food and we need water
We need sleep, lots of sleep
To help our bodies grow
From our heads down to our toes
Grow, grow, grow
Grow, grow, grow
6. Meet the Veggies
Tomato: I’m round and red
And juicy too.
Chop me for a salad,
Or dump me in your stew!
Lettuce: Hey, wait a minute!
If a salad you’re fixin’
I can stand alone.
No need for the mixin’!
Onion: Chop me and slice me
But keep water near.
I sometimes get juicy
And can bring on a tear!
Carrot: Orange is my color
I stand long and lean.
In the garden you’ll see
Just my bright leaves of green.
Pea: I live in a pod
With so many others.
I think I was born
With one hundred brothers!
Green Bean: Look in the garden
You’ll see my sign.
Then bring out your basket
When it’s pickin’ time!
Potato: I’ve an eye for perfection
To give you the best.
Baked, mashed or fried-
I’ll pass the test!
Cabbage: My head is quite thick
So people tell me.
I guess that’s the reason
Grocery stores sell me!
Celery: Cut and rinse my stalks,
Then spread on cream cheese.
A refreshing hors d’oeuvre
To make parties a breeze!
Squash: Some call me a game,
A game of good sport,
But I’m really to eat
As a side dish of sorts!
Brussel Sprout: I’m kinda cute
When I’m served on a plate
I’m just a little mouthful.
You can eat six or eight!
Cauliflower: I carry white flowers
To break off and eat.
I’m sometimes served raw,
A nutritious snack treat!
Broccoli: My friends call me trees.
Now that’s a funny name.
Though I am a dark green
With stalks just the same.
We’re the veggies
You should eat every day!
Now don’t make a face.
We’re as good as we say!
7. Cheese Please
(tune 3 blind mice)
Cheese, cheese, cheese we love cheese
Please, please please give us cheese
We like white cheese oh yes we do
Orange cheese taste wonderful too
Yellow cheese is for me and you
Oh, give us cheese
Teaching Concepts for Fingerplays
1. One Potato, Two Potato
One potato, two potato, three potato, four
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more .
(Hold up one finger at a time as you count. Clap on more.)
2. If I had a Bagel
(sung to the tune “If I Had A Hammer”)
If I had a bagel.
I’d eat it in the morning.
I’d eat it in the evening,
All over this land.
I’d eat it for breakfast,
I’d eat it for supper,
I’d eat it with all my friends and sisters and brothers,
All, over this land.
1. Hot Potato
2. Healthy Food Scavenger Hunt
3. Jumping Jacks
4. Relay Races
5. Obstacle Course
Make a classroom cookbook. Using open ended questions and sequencing, ask children to describe how their favorite food is made. Write down their answers word for word. Introduce children to descriptive words during the activity. For a home connection, ask parents to send in the actual recipe for the dish and combine them in the book. This makes a great Mother’s Day gift. Remember to keep one in your library and/or dramatic play center. Children can illustrate the pages.
1. Healthy Heart Boogie
Turn on some fun, upbeat music. Take turns creating a simple move as the others follow along. Put your hand over your heart and feel it beating faster! Think up some challenges, such as: dance with your feet in place. How can you twist, turn and shake your body without moving your feet? Hold some scarves or streamers to move through the air as you dance. Dance as a pair. Pick a body part that has to touch while you are dancing (you and your partner dance while keeping your hands touching, now try elbows or hips)
2. Go on a walk through your home. How many steps does it take to get from one space to another?
3. Help your children become aware of differences in foods. Talk about the size, taste, texture and color of foods. Help them recognize the differences between rough and smooth surfaces, salty and sweet tastes, and the odors of certain foods.
4. Sort and name foods after a trip to the grocery store. Let children name each food, or ask them to tell you something about each food, as you take it out of the bog. As you sort the groceries, ask children to put together all the foods that are the same: fresh vegetables in one place, boxes in another. Talk to your child about the sizes of the cans as you put them away-tall and short, wide and narrow.