Food...The Fuel that Keeps our Body Going

Summary

This lesson helps the students to understand how foods affect their body. We will be focusing on the benefits of healthy food and why it is important to eat such foods. Each student will be given the opportunity to bring in a healthy food to share with the class and talk about how that food affects certain parts of the body.

Materials

You will need to have a diagram that shows the food groups and which food goes where.

Background for Teachers

You must know about the food groups in general. You also have to know how food affects the body (i.e. milk builds strong bones, bananas are good for the heart, carrots good for the eyes, etc.)

Student Prior Knowledge

Students must know what is healthy and what is not. They also must know basic foods.

Intended Learning Outcomes

As a result of this activity students will be able to make daily choices about healthy eating. They will understand that eating healthy is important physically and mentally. They will also understand how certain foods affect certain parts of the body (see teacher prior knowledge).

Instructional Procedures

1. Talk about the foods they eat and wheher or not they are healthy.
2. Talk about the food groups and which foods fall into which categories.
3. Assign each student a day to bring in their favorite store bought health food to share with the class. As they are presenting they will also talk about which parts of the body that food affects. If they do not want to bring anything in to share, they can simply draw a picture of their favorite health food and share it sometime throughout the week or students could trace their bodies on newsprint and draw or paste in pictures of food in places in the body where the food is helpful.

Assessment Plan

The students will not be graded on whether or not they bring food in, but will be graded based on their thought. If they do explain what the food is and where it falls in the groups they receive full points.