FOOD
AND NUTRITIONMaintaining my webpages has now become a part-time career for me, and the cost of site maintenance has steadily risen over time. So, if you benefit from this website and would like to see it continue, please purchase "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers," and/or make occasional financial donations where possible to help defer the costs of keeping my site on the internet.
FOOD
AND NUTRITION
From
Stormie:
Although
I'm posting ideas below as often as I can, I have reserved my very favorite activities
for my "FOOD AND NUTRITION"
booklet (see the "Stormie's Stuff for Teachers" section
of my website).
Eat
a Flower Garden: On large trays or even along the edge of an impeccably clean
table, and with VERY CLEAN HANDS, let children build a flower garden with
vegetables, then eat it together. Round slices of cucumber, carrot, beet,
or tomato can be flower blooms. Whole green beans, green pepper strips,
or carrot/celery sticks can be stems and tree trunks. Lettuce can be leaves
or treetops. Broccoli can also serve as trees. Alfalfa sprouts can
be grass. Put out a bowl of rinsed canned kidney beans (they make good bugs).
You might want to post a sign-up sheet for parents to volunteer foods so you'll
have plenty of variety. You can even invite parents to come and "make and
eat a garden" too so nothing goes to waste. Decorate the surrounding walls
with pictures of flowers and trees but let the children themselves decide how
to create their portion of the garden.
If you use trays instead
of a table, it would be neat to allow two children to work together on one tray.
Fruit Song: Here's a little song I created from the tune of "Hi Ho
the Derry O" to provide a game that reinforces colors and the names of fruits.
To play, everyone stands in a circle with a fruit picture around their necks.
You, the teacher, start the game by standing in the center of the circle.
Sing:
First verse:
I'll pick a yellow
(or other color) fruit,
I'll pick a yellow fruit, hi ho the derry O, I'll pick a yellow fruit.
(Choose
"banana" or other yellow fruit who then comes to the center of the circle.)
Second verse:
The banana picks something
blue (or other color chosen by the banana
child), the banana picks something blue, hi ho the derry O,
the banana picks something blue.
(The
banana picks "blueberries" or other blue fruit who then comes to the center
of the circle.)
Third verse:
The blueberries pick something red (or
other color chosen by the blueberries child),
the blueberries pick something red, hi ho the derry O, the blueberries pick something
red.
(The blueberries pick an
apple or other red fruit who then comes to the center of the circle.)
Memory Game: At grouptime, lay 5 (more or less, depending on your group's readiness) fruit cutouts on the floor in the center of the circle of children. Discuss the pictures (fruit names, color, etc). Then throw a towel over the fruits. Reach in and remove one. Children then guess which fruit is missing. Increase the difficulty by adding more fruit pictures, or add vegetables to the mix and have the children tell you whether a fruit or vegetable is missing.
Pre-Math
Center Game: Vegetable Patterns: On a table, children take turns laying
vegetables out in a pattern. Begin with two (example: tomato-cucumber, tomato-cucumber,
tomato-cucumber). Increase the difficulty by adding more vegetables (tomato-cucumber-carrot,
tomato-cucumber-carrot, tomato-cucumber-carrot). Play the same game with
fruits.
Stormie's
Games: By the way, I offer a "Food Match"
game in the "Teaching Aids" section of "Stormie's
Stuff for Teachers."
0Here's
a cute poem/song from Donna Coffey, in Nancy, Kentucky. Donna says
you can use your own tune if you wish to sing it rather than "say" it as a rhyme.
She hopes your children will enjoy it as much as hers have!
0From
Kae Douglas: Letters Review Game:
Shopping:
Set up a pretend grocery store with empty food boxes, plastic fruit, etc.
Get a shopping cart and then call a child by name saying something like, "Joseph
went to the grocery store, and he bought something that begins with the letter
S." This is a wonderful activity that's very flexible: You can using rhyming
words (i.e. ..."bought something that rhymes with born -- corn"). You can
use colors (i.e...."bought something that is red"). You can create thinking
games ("i.e...."bought something you can use to make a sandwich").
Favorite
Books:
0From
Stormie:
The
Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear,by Don and Audrey
Wood; Don Wood, Illustrator:I love the
pictures in this book about a mouse who picks a huge strawberry while being warned
about the big hungry bear who will try to steal it.
*Related
activities from Julaine Nelson:
It's a great time of year to
read this book when strawberries are coming into season. I go to the store
and buy the biggest fattest strawberries I can find. We read the book and
then I give each child a big fat strawberry and a plastic knife on a paper plate
and let them cut it in half and share the other half with one of their friends.
Of course everyone wants to do it over and over so we get in lots of "slicing"
(fine motor skill) and "sharing" (social skill) practice. We also
walk around quietly scampering like a little mouse and then big hard loud booming
steps like the bear (creative drama/gross motor). The children love doing
this.
0More
book suggestions from Stormie:
Wednesday
Is Spaghetti Day, by Maryann Cocca-Leffler:Catrina,
the cat, fixes a spaghetti dinner every Wednesday for her feline friends although
the human family she lives with thinks she spends the day all alone while they're
away at work and school.
Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs, Written by Judi Barrett; Drawn by Ron Barrett:Grandpa
tells a story about the town of Chewandswallow (get it? chew and swallow--ha)
where they have very unusual weather--food. People go outside with their
plates and forks to catch and eat it. This book is such fun and the pictures
are neat too.
Eating
the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z, by Lois Ehlert:
A bright colorful book of collaged fruits and vegetables.
Vegetable
Soup, by Judy Freudberg & Tony Geiss; Illustrated by Tom Cooke:
I truly love this Sesame Street characters book. In it, Cookie Monster gets
introduced to vegetables. At first, he thinks a carrot is an orange pencil,
a stalk of celery is a feather duster, a squash is a telephone that doesn't work,
and so on. Fortunately, Bert and Ernie come along and set him straight,
and they all make vegetable soup together.
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Reminder
from Stormie: If you would like to begin collecting ALL my current classroom
ideas (each on a 4 x 6" index card), as well as new ones that I create, you
can do so by ordering my "Activity Cards." Click here
to check them out.
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