Grade Level: Second

Title: The "Fab" Five Food Groups

By:

Rachel McClure

Nikki Tedder

Susie Wightman

Katrina Stephens

Studying the five food groups is very important to young children, especially in their first years of school. They are becoming more independent and getting to make some of their own food choices (at home and at school). The NCSC of S recommends that second graders should know the five food groups and be able to classify foods into the groups. The students should know the values of foods, know whether they are healthy or not, and be able to plan a balanced meal. They should also know the basics of "good" table manners and cleanliness.

We plan to use hands-on activities, learning center activities, demonstrations, experiments, discovery lessons, and classroom discussions to help children accomplish these goals. We think the children will use their experiences and logic coming into these lessons. We will draw on their curiosity, problem-solving skills, and creativity in "teaching" this unit. We hope they will enjoy themselves and appreciate what they have learned.

Children learn the basics of eating at home. Through these lessons, we hope they reinforce what they already know and gain new, important information and attitudes to grow on. Hopefully, this unit will give them a healthy look at foods and eating.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY:

In order to teach a unit on food groups, you need a motivation to get children excited about the unit. Since we will be teaching about the five food groups, healthy food choices, and trying new foods, we decided a field trip to a nearby grocery store would be fun and very informative for students. By the time students are in second grade, they have all, more than likely, been in a grocery store, but they probably have not been on a tour of the grocery store or gotten to discuss the variety of foods and their food groups. This activity will need to be supervised and accompanied by teacher, teacher assistants, parents, and volunteers. This will be beneficial and adventurous for students.

GOALS:

Students will:

1 - Know the five food groups and categorize foods accordingly.

2 - Enjoy planning a "balanced" meal.

3 - Value making healthy choices and trying "new" foods.

4 - Be able to display proper table manners.

OBJECTIVES:

Students will:

1 - Identify the five food groups.

2 - Categorize foods into the five food groups.

5 - Evaluate meals and tell how they could improve them.

6 - Demonstrate "good" table manners.

7 - Discuss and evaluate snacks as being healthy or unhealthy.

Our pre-assessment is to evaluate the amount of knowledge the children obtain concerning the different food groups. Children will keep a list of what they eat over a weekend and bring it in on Monday. These questions will be addressed during the discussion of what was eaten:

Objective 1: Children will identify the five food groups

Activity: We will use a felt board and pictures of different foods in a class discussion about the five food groups. We will let each child pick a food, then decide to which food group it belongs. We will also discuss some tricky foods and their categorization.

Materials: A felt-covered board and pictures of different foods with Velcro on them.

Key Content: The five food groups and their daily serving recommendations:

Fats and Sweets - use sparingly

Objective 2: Children will categorize foods into the five food groups.

Activity: This activity will consist of learning/discovery centers for children to choose on their own.

Centers will include:

Objective 3: Students will discuss the main problems caused by the fats and sweets group.

Activity: In a short presentation, we will cover some facts and problems of the fats and sweets group. There are four mini-lessons for this objective (The ideas for these activities have been taken and/or adapted from Nutrition Smart!).

1 to pour the water into the beaker

1 to put / pour the item into the water

1 to stir up the mixture

1 to record the groupís decision on the white board chart

The group must experiment, discuss the results, and make a decision (whether the food item is a fat or not). Each group will repeat their experiment for the class, tell their decision, and explain how they came to that conclusion. The recorder will mark their decision on the white board. After all the groups have presented their experiments, we will discuss any questions or comments the students have.

Materials: 6 clear plastic beakers, 6 small pitchers of water, peanut butter, cooking oil, butter, coke, orange juice, vinegar, white board, markers

Activity Two: We will discuss the fact that too many fats in our diets can be very harmful to our health and can cause heart attacks, strokes, and other health problems. The students will each have a straw for this class activity. This straw is representative of our arteries which carry oxygen and blood through our bodies. We will do this along with the students. "Put your hand on one end of the straw and blow through it on the other end. Do you feel air coming through the straw? Now, put one of the straw on the paper towel and using the dropper, drop a drop of red water (blood) through the straw. Does it go through?" Now each student will be instructed to stick one end of their straw into the Crisco like the teacher does and repeat the previous steps. "Does air come through the straw now? Does the red water goes through? What happens? We will discuss the fact that these straws are like arteries which are supposed to carry oxygen and blood through our bodies. When we eat too many fats for many years, our arteries get clogged up and canít transport air and blood as easily as they used to. Sometimes they totally block the artery, like the Crisco did, and this causes a heart attack or stroke. (We want this to be a quick, easy lesson with factual, concrete information. We think this is important for students to know; but at this age, we donít want this to be worrisome. So, this lesson will be quick and easy.)

Materials: 25 straws, Crisco, water, red food coloring, dropper, 25 paper towels

Evaluation: We will listen to studentís discussions, questions, and comments to see if they can explain how too many fats can be harmful. They will be encouraged to write about the experience in their journals. This activity is to give the students an introduction to this important health information and a concrete experience on which they may base future information acquisitions.

Activity Three: A local dentist will be invited to speak to the students to reinforce our key points about sweets and promote good dental care. Children will enjoy this and get to ask questions.

Evaluation: Students will write a letter to their parents (or whoever they wish) about the dentists visit and how sweets can affect our teeth. An option could be to write a report and "teach" it to a younger child or a small group of younger children. We will evaluate products to see if students are able to give a rationale for limiting sweets consumption.

Activity Four: During the course of the day, students need to visit the measuring center which will be set up with a hands-on sweets activity. There will be "real" empty food boxes/packages which are labeled with the approximate teaspoons of sugar in a serving of that food. Students will be instructed to read the label and measure out the appropriate amount of sugar for that food {EX. Chocolate pudding pop - 2 1/2 teaspoons, a Coke - 9 1/2 teaspoons (Baggy and Woika, 1991)} This activity will allow students to actually see how much sugar is going into their bodies when they eat these particular foods and to be aware of whatís going into their bodies. Measuring, reading, and discussing are also important parts of this activity.

Students will list the foods they measured, the amount of sugar in them, and their own comments about their experience. We will check to see if they understood that the foods contained large amounts of sugar, and are aware of the contents of some of the foods that go into their bodies.

Objective 4: Children will plan a balanced meal.

Activity: After a discussion on what makes a meal "balanced", children will make their own balanced meal. Using paper plates and old magazines, children will cut and paste foods onto their plate. (We feel they will enjoy this and enjoy discussing their "meals" with others as well as creating them.) A large colored chart of the five food groups will be available for the students to refer to as well as individual copies of a food groups chart.

Materials: Paper plates, old magazines, scissors, Elmers glue (Also anything in the art centers will be available for them to use, such as yarn for spaghetti, etc.)

Key points: A "balanced" meal is one that includes foods from each food group or in relation to the whole dayís recommended servings For example: If you had 2 milks at breakfast and one for lunch, then at dinner you might want to consider eating fruit instead of ice cream for dessert. For a balanced meal you should use fats and sweets as sparingly as possible.

Evaluation: The teacher (and assistant) will circulate and ask questions about the meals. Are they balanced? How do you know? Afterwards, children will write in their daily journals telling what their meals consisted of and why they were "balanced". They could also write about other studentís meals and what they thought of them. Oral and written responses will be checked to be sure that the meals children plan are balanced.

Objective 5: Children will evaluate meals to decide whether they are balanced or not.

Activity: Children will keep a list of their meals for one day. Each child needs to write a report on whether the meals were balanced;what could be changed to make them balanced; and whether they are getting the right amounts of the five food groups. They can do this alone or discuss it with their neighbors.

Key Points: Same as in Objective 4: What constitutes a "balanced" meal .

Evaluation: Observation and the reports. We are checking to make sure the children are getting an adequate number of servings and a variety of foods. We want to be sure children are evaluating meals according to the criteria we taught.

Objective 6: Children will demonstrate "good" table manners.

Activity: As a class, we will read the book Perfect Pigs by Marc Brown and Stephen Krensky. Afterwards, we will discuss the parts "At All Times and During Meals" specifically and focus on good table manners. Student volunteers can help role play good table manners for the class. We will arrange for the class to eat lunch in our classroom and will practice good table manners. We will also observe others manners.

 
Objective 7: Children will examine how outside processes change foods.

Activity: Children will get to bring in foods to experiment with. They can decide what they want to act upon the food--heating, cold, air, water, etc.--then, they get to carry out the experiment. Of course, the ones who want to heat will have to watch the teacher do it or be observed carefully while doing it! They can put their food in the school freezer in the morning and check it that afternoon or the next day. They can leave it out--open to the air--and check it that afternoon/next day or can put it in water and leave for hours or a day. The children need to write what outside effects they have subjected their food to and how that process affected their food.

Materials: Hot plate, at least 2 small pots, access to the cafeteria freezer, water, small container for the foods.

Evaluation: Observation and reports. Children will also be watching the other experiments around them and discussing them. They can write about the otherís experiments in their journals if they want. Check to see if students are using good observational skills and if they are able to decide how different conditions appear to affect food.

Note: There will be at least three books added to the reading center for this lesson:

A Chilling Story - How Things Cool Down

The Science Book Of Hot & Cold

Make It Change

Students will be encouraged to read and use these books in deciding on their experiment.
 

Objective 8: Children will discuss and evaluate snacks

Activity: We will discuss what snacks they eat, like, and donít like and the reasons why they pick those (if they get to pick) and how healthy those choices are. There will be no good foods/bad foods attitude here, only that some choices are better than other and how they fit into the servings allowed on the five food groups chart. (If have time, may discuss how advertising pushes them into some choices.) Children will take the snack they brought or bought for that day--or their favorite snack-- and evaluate its healthiness.

Materials: Make sure each child brings a snack that day or provide one for them.

Key Points: What is healthy? What is unhealthy? A food from the fats and sweets group is more than likely unhealthy. Healthy snacks can be categorized into one of the four other food groups, such as: apples-fruits, peanut butter-meats, ice cream-milk,

etc.

Evaluation: Observation, discussion, and evaluation of their own or favorite snack.

We will be checking to see if theyíre using the information theyíve covered on food choices in evaluating their snack and if theyíre making good choices.
 

 
As a class, we will discuss and plan a balanced meal for our classroom. We need to decide on a meal, then decide how we are going to get that meal. We will come up with a list of everything weíll need for the meal and send home the lists to see what parents can and will bring. We may also ask the cafeteria what they could let us have for our meal. We will make sure that itís a balanced, healthy meal and is something we can reasonably prepare in our classroom.

We will plan activities to make this meal a real learning experience for the children using creativity, math skills (counting, estimating, distributing), and writing skills. Some projects for this meal can be planned, such as designing their own place mats, designing menus for the class meal, writing letters about their class meal to their parents or grandparents and designing invitations. We may discuss inviting the parent volunteer who comes one day a week, the principal, vice-principal, or others and mail or hand-deliver their invitations.

On the day of the meal, children will be in charge of setting their own places and choosing their own foods. They will be reminded to use good table manners during this meal, but not restrictively so (we want them to have fun!). This will be THEIR meal.