Challenge Centers: Health and Nutrition

Preschool Age 4-5

Chrissy Allen
Pumpkin Delight School
Milford, CT

Directions for all Level B activities are given daily orally before Center Choice Time, in addition there are pictorial work cards at various stations when needed. The teacher/ para-educator rotates through the centers to ensure successful completion and to provide assistance.

Level A: Required of all students
The students will listen and attend to the class discussion of healthy foods including the teacher reading of food and nutrition books during Circle Time. Each student will focus attention during the brief introduction of the food pyramid to be used for later sorting activities. At the end of group oral discussions, each student will be able to orally identify an example of a healthy food and an unhealthy “sometimes” food.

Level B: Students will have a choice of four challenge centers each day that will rotate for a period of two weeks( typically 4-6 days of school as the students do not attend every day.) Students must visit at least two new centers per day. Centers are 12 minutes in duration.

Choose a food from our kitchen area for the Mystery Bag. Describe your food to a partner giving clues so they can guess what it is. Use the sentence strips to help you with your clues. My food is_______(color). My food tastes________( sweet, sour, juicy etc). You eat my food for__________( mealtime). My food can be eaten ______(cooked or uncooked). My food is__________(healthy or unhealthy). Verbal/ Linguistic
Sit with the teacher. Listen to a new nutrition book. At our end of the day Circle Time, retell the story to your friends while the teacher turns the pages.

Verbal/ Linguistic

On the Dole5aday.com website ( loaded by the teacher), use the mouse to choose a game. Play the game, following the computer’s directions using what you have learned about healthy foods. The game choices are: Vending Machine Mania, 5 A Day The Color Way, Take the 5 A Day Challenge, and 5 A Day Adventure Starring You. You must play one of these games. Visual/ Spatial & Bodily/ Kinesthetic
Use the cardboard food pyramid to sort a mini shopping cart full of groceries. Remember there are separate shelves on the food pyramid for fruits, vegetables, milk products, bread/ grains, meat and “sometimes foods”. (The outdated food pyramid is used for this center for general classifying into food groups only.)

Logical/ Mathematical

In your journal, draw a picture and record what you had for lunch today. Do your best work and remember details. Under the drawing, write the letter of the first sound you hear in that food word. Ask the teacher for help if you cannot sound the word out yourself. Visual/ Spatial & Verbal/ Linguistic
Construct a “healthy plate”. Choose a paper plate and a glue stick. Use the food magazines to cut out only healthy foods and glue them onto your plate. You must know the name of what you choose to put on your plate, you will be describing your plate to your friends at our end of the day Circle Time. Visual/ Spatial
Use the 5 A Day worksheet to graph how many fruits/ vegetables you have eaten today. Try to remember what you had for breakfast, lunch and snack. If you had one fruit/ vegetable color and cut out one nutrition buddy and glue it onto the graph. If you ate two fruits/ vegetables cut out two nutrition buddies etc. If you did not eat a fruit or vegetable today do not add anything to the graph. ( Teacher assistance needed)Logical/ Mathematical
Fold a large white paper in half. Using the paints, illustrate a healthy meal by painting it on one half of the paper. Paint an unhealthy meal using the “sometimes” foods on the other half of the paper. Visual/ Spatial & Bodily/ Kinesthetic
Go to the Listening Center and choose one 5 A Day song, either alone or with friends. Work together to come up with a dance or exercises that we can do as a class during our Music and Movement Time. You must use at least three different exercises or dance moves. Remember no running or touching your friends. You( and your friends) will teach this to the teacher and the rest of the class. Musical & Bodily/ Kinesthetic
Interview a friend about what his/ her favorite foods are for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and at a restaurant. Decide whether these foods are healthy or not. Who is the healthier eater? (Teacher facilitation may be needed) Interpersonal & Verbal Linguistic

Level C: Students must choose one Challenge activity from the below list. Two require parent involvement to reach the evaluation/ synthesis stage for these young students. A packet describing our unit in depth and culminating activities accompanies the students at the beginning of the second week of study. Three challenge activities do not require parent involvement and thus are done if a student so chooses or I do not get a parental response to the packet.

Go to the grocery store with a parent or guardian and help select only healthy foods and drinks for one full week of school snacks( 2 or 3 snacks). At snack time share your selections with the class. Students are encouraged to try new healthy foods. Interpersonal, Verbal/ Linguistic & Bodily/ Kinesthetic
From our picture cards, select a rhyming word( picture) for each food on our felt board. Make at least four rhyming picture pairs to share at Circle Time. Did you find more healthy pairs of rhymes or unhealthy pairs? Verbal/ Linguistic & Logical/ Mathematical
Go to our classroom kitchen with at least one friend. Role play restaurant. One child is the waiter/ waitress and the other is the customer. The waiter/ waitress must tell or draw what is on the menu, the customer must order a healthy meal. Do not forget to set the table, cook the food, serve the food, eat, clear the plates and the customer must pay at the register. ( Teacher facilitation if needed) Interpersonal, Verbal/ Linguistic& Bodily Kinesthetic
Help Mom, Dad or someone else in your family make a healthy dinner. Design a menu, take a picture of your meal and bring it into class. You will use your picture for show and tell. Interpersonal, Bodily/ Kinesthetic & Verbal/ Linguistic
Help create our class fruit salad for Fruit Salad Day. Decide what fruits we should have, wash the fruit, mix the salad and help serve your friends for the special snack. (Teacher assistance required)Interpersonal & Bodily/ Kinesthetic