The food pyramid was our first Concept Week, and it was a little rough around the edges, however it gave me a feel for what I wanted to do and the rest really took off so it worked out in the end. I decided to do this because Optimus Prime & Bumblebee followed me around the house for four days straight begging me to make chocolate chip cookies. Finally I told them that we needed to learn about the Food Pyramid since my answer of "No junk food today" just wasn't cutting it. I'm not saying that you can't have junk food, but we had just finished off a cake earlier that week and I didn't see the need for cookies the following day.
It took a bit of hunting around the internet for free worksheets, and after we had finished the unit I actually found this website which has tons of free nutrition worksheets, so I was a bit bummed - but they also had gardening worksheets so it all worked out in the end. On a side note the USDA said that they were working on worksheets for myplate but had none up. They also said that you could access all of their old food pyramid worksheets but I couldn't. I found the links for them but nothing was there. I don't know if these issues have since been worked out or not. So we didn't use anything from their site in the end and had to rely upon Google and worksheets that I wrote up myself.
I start each Concept Week with a project so I made a giant color-coded food pyramid out of construction paper and hung it up on our wall. Then I printed up pictures of food from the internet and had Optimus Prime and Bumblebee put them where they thought they were supposed to go. The ones they got wrong we went over together. We also went over why things like ice cream went in junk food instead of dairy and cookies went in junk food instead of grains. We left the food pyramid up for the whole month in the end.
We also worked everyday on a workbook that I had pulled together for them with worksheets from Google. They were typical pre-k/kindergarten kids worksheets like "circle all of the grains," or "draw a picture of your favorite fruit."
On our final day, after we finished off the workbook, we read a book that was relevant to our lessons. We actually read "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food" by Stan and Jan Berenstain. While the book didn't actually go over the food pyramid it was a good book and it worked out just fine since it also covered the importance of exercise which we didn't go over.
In the end the lesson sunk in and while they still ask for junk food they don't beg for it like they used to. Now things like brownies and cakes only get made once a week and they understand why they can only have one or two pieces a day. They are also a lot more understanding when I say no to them, where before they would just whine that they really, really wanted cookies. So even though the whole thing didn't come out perfect I think it was a win!
It took a bit of hunting around the internet for free worksheets, and after we had finished the unit I actually found this website which has tons of free nutrition worksheets, so I was a bit bummed - but they also had gardening worksheets so it all worked out in the end. On a side note the USDA said that they were working on worksheets for myplate but had none up. They also said that you could access all of their old food pyramid worksheets but I couldn't. I found the links for them but nothing was there. I don't know if these issues have since been worked out or not. So we didn't use anything from their site in the end and had to rely upon Google and worksheets that I wrote up myself.
I start each Concept Week with a project so I made a giant color-coded food pyramid out of construction paper and hung it up on our wall. Then I printed up pictures of food from the internet and had Optimus Prime and Bumblebee put them where they thought they were supposed to go. The ones they got wrong we went over together. We also went over why things like ice cream went in junk food instead of dairy and cookies went in junk food instead of grains. We left the food pyramid up for the whole month in the end.
We also worked everyday on a workbook that I had pulled together for them with worksheets from Google. They were typical pre-k/kindergarten kids worksheets like "circle all of the grains," or "draw a picture of your favorite fruit."
On our final day, after we finished off the workbook, we read a book that was relevant to our lessons. We actually read "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food" by Stan and Jan Berenstain. While the book didn't actually go over the food pyramid it was a good book and it worked out just fine since it also covered the importance of exercise which we didn't go over.
In the end the lesson sunk in and while they still ask for junk food they don't beg for it like they used to. Now things like brownies and cakes only get made once a week and they understand why they can only have one or two pieces a day. They are also a lot more understanding when I say no to them, where before they would just whine that they really, really wanted cookies. So even though the whole thing didn't come out perfect I think it was a win!
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