Childhood obesity is a national problem that we can help prevent.
It’s a lot easier to instill healthy habits during early childhood then to repair your teenager’s bad nutritional habits later on!
Exposing a child to teachable moments throughout the year is always beneficial. So during this time of Halloween candy, turkey, yams, Christmas cookies and Chanukah latkes, let’s take a moment to teach a few “nutritional nuggets."
Introduce the big idea: “Let me see your muscles,” you say with great admiration.
“Put your thinking caps on. Whoa, you need a bigger cap! Your brain is growing,” you say in amazement.
Discuss with your class how what we eat fuels brains and builds muscles.
Children learn through the senses. Here are some lesson ideas that use many of them:
Math and Science Activity: Follow a recipe using many of the fruits harvested in the fall. Some of the more popular in-season fruits include apples, clementines, cranberries, pears, pomegranates, and tangerines. As you measure, weigh and change the composition of foods, you can connect these concepts to their math and science lessons.
Musical Phonics Activity: Let’s Go Shopping is a fun and interactive song that combines initial phonemes with food. Have your students call out alphabet letters starting with "A" as an adult leader or the recording responds to the call by answering with the shopping items.
Enjoy singing the chorus (especially the “yeah, yeah, yeah” part) !!!
Choreography tip: When the cash register sound effect occurs, have the children raise their hands over their heads and tap their thumb and index fingers together.
Language Arts and Science: Encourage children to expand upon the grocery list by thinking of other items alphabetically. As a follow up for older students, let them categorize their grocery list by food groups.
Physical Education and Language Arts: Have your students form two lines that face each other. One line is the “letter caller”, while the line that faces them has to respond with a food that corresponds to the initial phoneme.
Example: Call: “A” Response: “Apple”
To designate whose turn it is, a ball can be passed between the two lines. To extend the activity, form two groups and have a relay.
Listen to Let’s Go Shopping in the audio player, below.
See all of SongsForTeaching’s Nutrition Songs and Physical Activity Songs.