Description

Create a chart with a list of the students’ names and each day of the month. (Instead of the student’s names, you could also use a “code name” that each student picks for themselves.  Students could choose a healthier food item such as kiwi, mango, steak, etc., to use as their code name.)

Before lining up for lunch, have students stand up next to their desks, or if space allows have students spread out in the classroom. Have all of the students do 10 jumping jacks and 10 toe touches, alternating 2 times for a total of 20 jumping jacks and 20 toe touches. Have the students add a sticker to the chart under their name for that day if they participated in the class activity or did some type of physical activity outside of school.

When the students return from lunch, ask who ate a serving of a fruit or vegetable. For every day the student eats a fruit or vegetable, he or she can put a sticker on that day.

At the end of the month, tally up the food and activity stickers.  See if the class can improve the tally each month.

Description

Have students bring in one or two Nutrition Facts Labels from home or provide them with one. Have the student read the ingredient list. (If the student is too young to read, the teacher can read the list.) When reading the label, look for words that:

• are hard to say
• do not sound like whole food ingredients, for example, apple (foods that you eat that contain one ingredient)
• sounds like chemicals are artificial colors or flavors.

Tell the students to jump up vertically for each number of words in the ingredient list (i.e. 6 ingredients=6 vertical jumps) and then have them jump side to side for every word that they cannot pronounce or don’t know how to say (i.e. can’t pronounce 3 words=jump side to side 3 times).

Note: Any other variations of body movements will work for this activity.

Compare these “foods” to foods that do not have an ingredient list, like apples or celery.  The more ingredients listed on a food package and the more words that are hard to pronounce means that the food is likely more processed and may not be as healthful for us.

Another version would be to compare a homemade recipe, such as mayonnaise, to a store bought version.  What are the differences?

Description

Choose five corners/walls to be stations. Label each of the five stations as one of the five main food groups (fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, protein). The teacher will then close his or her eyes and count aloud from 10 down to zero.

As the teacher counts, the students move quickly around the gym or play space to any food group wall/corner of their choice. The students need to select and stop at one of the five stations before the teacher reaches zero.

When the teacher is down to zero, with eyes still closed, he or she will choose a food group, call out that name (such as vegetables) and all students standing at that station will be eliminated. The eliminated students will then go to the center of the gym and the game starts over with the remaining students. The game continues until only a few students remain standing and they are considered the winners of the game or that round.

Description

Pass out one feather to each student.

Have the students spread out so they each have their own space to work.

Tell the students to hold the feather high in the air and let it go. Have them watch how it slowly and softly floats to the ground.

Now challenge the kids to the following feather tests. Have them hold the feather up in the air as high as is possible again and let it go.

As it floats down, see if they can catch it or have it land on the following body parts:

• back of the hand
• elbow or forearm
• shoe or foot
• lay on floor and have it land on your back
• knee
• nose
• any other body part.

Additional Feather Activities

• The feathers could be used to represent the colors of the five food groups:
  • orange for grains
  • red for fruits
  • green for vegetables
  • blue for milk and dairy products
  • purple for protein.

Spread the feathers out on the floor. When you say “go,” have the students run to the feathers, grab one, and then quickly go to a corner or area of the room that represents that food group. The students with the green feathers could group in one corner and so on. The students with black, brown or yellow feathers could all represent the fats/oils group.

• Follow up this activity by having the students think of a healthful snack or food item that is the same color as the feather or think of a food item that is from the food category that their feather represents.

Description

Choose three students to be the “chasers.” Have these three students pick one of the five colors from the Choose MyPlate food categories: green for vegetables, red for fruit, blue for dairy, purple for protein or orange for grain. You can also include the fats/oils group if you would like. Once they have picked their color, have them each choose one nutritious food item from that food category.

Have the rest of students line up at one end of the gym and the three chasers in the middle of the gym. One of the chasers tells the group which food category was chosen. He or she then tells their classmates that they need to decide to be one of the three chosen food items.

The chaser calls out one of the three food choices. All of the students who have chosen that food item run from one side of the gym to the other without getting tagged by the chasers. If the student is tagged they are out of the round and need to go to the side of the gym and wait for the next round to start. For example: The fruit category is chosen by the chaser group. From the fruit category, the first student picks strawberries, the second student picks grapes and the third student picks watermelon.

One of the chasers tells the group that they have chosen the fruit category. He or she then tells their classmates that they need to decide if they would like to be a strawberry, a grape or a watermelon.

The chaser calls out grapes. All of the students who have chosen to be grapes run from one side of the gym to the other without getting tagged by the chasers.

If the chasers would like all of the students to run at once, they might call:

“Fruit Salad” for the fruit group, “Salsa” for the vegetable group, “Milk shake” for the dairy group, “Popcorn” for the grain group, “Chili” for the protein (meat and bean group), “Grease” for the fat and oil group

Or some other food category name that the group has decided upon.

The game starts over when there are only three participants left to run. These three students then become the new chasers and a new food category and foods choices are chosen.