Monday, May 25, 2009

Preschool Nutrition

When teaching a preschooler anything the key is FUN, FUN, FUN! Here are some ideas for teaching Nutrition & Health:

Make a Scrapbook Cookbook - this would be a great gift for Grandma as well. I've found some preschooler friendly recepies at:
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/milk/teachers/upload/mm_smartsnack_cookbook.pdf
http://www.dole5aday.com/html/kids/Kids%20Cookbook.html
http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/educators/lessons/chef-combo/chef-combo.asp?tab=1

What Do You Eat? We made a little booklet and each page had a different animal and we explained what they ate, the last page was What I eat with a picture of my son and a list of the food groups.

Parts of the Whole. One of the best tools of instilling a love of math & science later in life is cooking. You are basically mixing completely different items together to make a yummy whole. This is also great for explaining chemical reactions to older kids. I think having the kids have a hand in preparing meals is also a great way of teaching them about nutrition.

Fun with Yeast. Yeast causes things to expand - like bread to rise. We made homemade Amish Friendship Bread, and when discussing what changes are taking place, I needed a way to explain the fun of yeast, so I did this experiment: Place one package of dry yeast, 1/2 cup of sugar and one cup of warm (not hot) in an empty 2 liter soda bottle. Put a balloon over the top and watch it expand!

Where I come from! mini-book. We made a mini-book explaining where comon foods come from. My son colored a picture of his favorite food then told where that food origionated from.
Check out: http://atozteacherstuff.com/pages/244.shtml
Check out: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/nutrition.htm
Check out: http://www.kinderplans.com/content.cfm?pageid=166

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