Food Pyramid Lesson

[Rachel]

Does anyone have advice or experience dealing with teaching about the food pyramid to 4th graders? Any help would be much appreciated.

[mkreher]

I have seen several activities, hope they help!

1. Create a large pyramid on the wall, and different food cutouts. Divide the class in teams and have two baskets full of the food cutouts. The teams will race eachother to put the foods in the correct spot on the pyramid.
2. Have small groups create menus with healthy meals.
3. On paper plates or even large pieces of paper, have the students paste pictures of a healthy meal from magazines.

Good luck!

[SLP]

My own 5th grader had a student teacher last year who made the mistake of having the children compare the old food pyramid with the new food pyramid...my child had already learned the new food pyramid twice: once in Girl Scouts & again in a township library activity. Introducing the old food pyramid was a giant waste of time and the old info got totally mixed up with the new food pyramid info. The student teacher's lesson was a total failure and the parents were very upset about the mixture of info when it was time to study for the test.
My suggestion would be to make sure you have the NEWEST Food Pyramid Information and do not present the old info, except maybe to mention that this is NEW and an old one did exist.

[SLP]

Just thought you may be interested in an idea from our nutrition unit...you could adapt it to categorize healthy foods in each of the pyramid categories. Here is my post from another thread to give you details:

The National Dairy Council used to put out a free booklet called a "Tasting Passport". I have adapted their booklet to be used at school and at home. I introduce different healthy foods (using stickers or handstamps as incentives) and then the children get to glue a picture of the food they tasted into their "Passport" booklet. They also take the "Passport" home and draw pictures or write down healthy foods which they tried at home. They bring the booklets back to school and share their new taste experiences! The children love to fill up their booklets and can't wait to try new foods.

[teach1027]

Give the students a blank pyramid and have them fill it out the way they think it should be. Then have them share thir way with the class. Talk about the different wys the are constructed. Come up with a class pyramid, and check it with the official one.

[Chef Dave]

Visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture for posters and ideas on lessons and activities.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/kids/index.html