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 (The outdated food pyramid is used for this center for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