Healthy foods = super kids

This lesson focuses on how the foods we eat affect our bodies in both beneficial and harmful ways. Students will learn that grains provide energy; vegetables are needed for healthy skin, hair and eyes; fruits help the body heal, milk builds strong bones and teeth; meat builds muscle and gives strength; and sweets, fats, and oils are high in calories and give few vitamins and minerals and do little to help our bodies grow.

A lesson plan for grade 1 English Language Arts and English Language Development

By Phyllis Bass and Rubetta Carr

About the authors

Rubetta Carr is a National Board Certified first grade teacher at Central Elementary, Orange County School System, in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Phyllis Bass is an ESL teacher at Central and New Hope Elementary Schools, Orange County School System in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Learn more

• Nutrition Explorations nutritional information aimed at teachers and parents
• The Food Guide Pyramid a variety of information concerning the official food pyramid

Related pages

• To eat or not to eat: After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, students will sort the foods the caterpillar ate by foods they need or don't need for their body.
• Food choice in our everyday lives: Focuses on everyday foods and how these foods relate to the food pyramid. Students will recognize food vocabulary in the target language (Spanish) and will make healthy food choices by creating thinking maps, a school menu in the target language, and exploring food choices from around the world.
• La comida y la salud: Focuses on food and health using the food pyramid in Spanish. Students consider food choices and share food likes and dislikes. This lesson should be used after introcing food vocabulary and me gusta.

Related topics

• Learn more about healthful living and nutrition.

Legal

Learning outcomes

Students will:

• name the five food groups
• identify foods in each group
• classify foods in each group
• identify health benefits from each food group
• identify foods in “other” category
• recognize nutritious foods

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

2 weeks

Materials/resources

• Copy of the books D.W. The Picky Eater and Dinosaurs Alive and Well: A Guide to Good Health by Marc Brown
• take home teacher-made journal
• a SuperKid doll/puppet (teacher made or purchased)
• photo project CD
• donated t-shirts
• iron-ons transfer paper
• six shoe boxes
• index cards
• markers
• manila paper
• crayons and pencils
• glue
• magazines and newspaper ads
• chart paper
• healthy snacks generated from a list sent home to parents

Technology resources

1. If you have access to computers with Kidspiration software, the yummy/yucky activity can be reinforced and created through the Super Grouper component of this program.
2. Digital camera.

Pre-activities

Teacher will talk to students as they throw away lunch foods that they did not eat discussing likes and dislikes.

Students will make a chart labeled with yummy or yucky foods after returning to room. Students will record which foods they liked and which ones they did not like. This pre-activity will lead into a classroom discussion about the foods they ate and which groups they belong to.

Activities

Day 1:

1. The teacher will ask students to take a picture walk through the book D.W. the Picky Eater. Then the teacher will read the book aloud.
2. The teacher will ask students if they could identify with D.W. and decide which foods they find yummy or yucky. Make a list on chart paper.
3. Discuss if the foods are yucky, why do our parents want us to eat them?

Day 2:

1. The teacher will provide a variety of magazines, newspaper circulars and art paper. The students will fold the paper in half. Students will cut and paste pictures of yummy and yucky foods onto the art paper.
2. Students will orally share collages with a buddy.

Day 3:

1. Teacher will use three collages to demonstrate similarities and differences. The teacher will guide the students into recognizing what food groups are missing from their collages.
2. The teacher will introduce “The SuperKid Song” sung to Frere Jacques. The song chart will be displayed on chart paper and read as a shared reading with the SuperKid puppet.

Day 4:

1. Demonstrate the Food Group Action Game with the teacher and a student. The student and the teacher will each draw a food picture card. They will run, hop, walk, trot, etc., (teacher’s choice) to the end of the classroom and place their card in one of the six labeled boxes. (The five groups plus a sixth box that will be fats, oils, and sweets).
2. The students will be divided into two teams and will play until all cards are used (12–20 cards or until attention wanes).

Day 5:

1. Read aloud Dinosaurs Alive and Well: A Guide to Good Health by Marc Brown.
2. Review “The SuperKid Song” and replay the food action game with a variation. The cards on the boxes will now be flipped over to reveal the benefits of each group. The teacher, with puppet, will emphasize the “super power” that each group gives. For example, grains = energy, veggies = healthy skin, hair and eyes, fruits = healing power, meats = muscle power, dairy= strong bones and teeth and fats, oils and sweets = running on empty.

Days 6–12: Culmination Week

1. Students will take home a Super Foods for Super Kids Journal/Contract. The students will keep a written journal of the healthy foods that they eat each day at home and school. This would include breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner. The morning snacks will be cooking activities done in the classroom daily e.g. apple slices with peanut butter, ants on a log (raisins on celery), English muffin pizzas or fruit pizzas, trail mix and a milk shake.
2. When the students return their completed journals, they will earn a SuperKid t-shirt. Individual digital camera photos will be taken of the children wearing their shirt and their milkshake moustaches.

Assessment

• teacher observation
• SuperKid journal
• oral responses
• physical responses
• rubric

Supplemental information

Books:

• Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
• Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs by Judy Barret
• Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
• It’s A Spoon Not a Shovel by Mark and Caralyn Buehner

Modifications

For the advanced LEP student make sure to assess his prior knowledge of foods commonly available in USA. Use visuals, TPR and pair with strong student in cooperative work.

Alternative assessments

As needed based on individual student, assessment may be slightly simplified or shortened but students at the advanced level may be able to participate in the same assessments as their classmates without alternative.

Critical vocabulary

• food groups
• grains
• dairy
• fit
• fats
• yummy
• yucky
• nutrition
• trail mix
• milkshake
• picky eater
• English muffin
• “ants on a log”

Comments

The rubric is designed to list the students in your classroom. You may use this rubric for some or all of the activities described in this lesson plan. Place a check under either the happy face if the outcomes you are looking at are achieved or put a check under the sad face if the outcomes are not achieved.

This lesson plan was developed during the English Language Development Standard Course of Study lesson planning institutes hosted by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and LEARN NC, June and July, 2004. It includes specific strategies, instructional modifications, and alternative assessments which make this lesson accessible to limited English proficient students. Please note that this lesson has been aligned with the goals and objectives of the North Carolina English Language Development Standards.