What's It All About? Have you ever heard students teasing, "You are what you eat?" Well, have your students close their eyes and picture their favorite fruit. Now, tell them to imagine becoming that fruit for a day. Why wait until Halloween for an occasion for your students to get into costume? Have students dress up in costumes of their favorite foods and parade around the school. Create skits or puppet shows for the students to act out how they can fit in nutritious foods every day or how eating these foods gives us lasting energy.
How do we start? Dressing up as a variety of foods can make learning about food and nutrition creative and interactive for students, parents and participating community members. Get the students' creative juices flowing by asking them about their favorite foods. Make sure to elaborate on the variety of food possibilities…grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and meat groups. Work with your art teacher to help create costumes using simple supplies such as brown paper bags, felt cloth, colored paper, pens, glue, balloons, cardboard boxes...
What else? Older grades can work together to write and produce a puppet show featuring food characters such as bagel, peanut, orange, milk, broccoli and grapes. Have the students come up with creative names for each character. Students can get into character and act out scenes that address nutritious breakfast foods, the relationship between food and physical activity, healthy snacks, specific nutrients in foods, and how food can affect our bodies. The puppet show can illustrate that learning about food can be both educational and entertaining.
And more...
Use colorful costumes to generate conversation with your students about the nutritional value of different foods, how these foods taste, where they are grown, and what combinations of foods taste good. Humor is a key ingredient in keeping the students interested and curious.
What's It All About?
Dressing up as a variety of foods can make learning about food and nutrition creative and interactive for students, parents and participating community members. Get the students' creative juices flowing by asking them about their favorite foods. Make sure to elaborate on the variety of food possibilities…grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and meat groups. Work with your art teacher to help create costumes using simple supplies such as brown paper bags, felt cloth, colored paper, pens, glue, balloons, cardboard boxes...
Older grades can work together to write and produce a puppet show featuring food characters such as bagel, peanut, orange, milk, broccoli and grapes. Have the students come up with creative names for each character. Students can get into character and act out scenes that address nutritious breakfast foods, the relationship between food and physical activity, healthy snacks, specific nutrients in foods, and how food can affect our bodies. The puppet show can illustrate that learning about food can be both educational and entertaining.