Help on College Project

Try looking at "Captian Carlos" on the Playhouse Disney website. Its a short cartoon that teaches kids to choose health food over junk food. It tells them the reason behind eating healthy. You could also get on the government's website on the food pyramid.

I wouldn't focus totally on the food pyramid, but maybe on "being healthy." That's such a huge thing in society anyway, you should be able to find lots of information on teaching preschoolers to "take care of their body." Eating right, staying active, getting enough rest, drinking water, brushing their teeth, etc. Good luck!

Well when my daughter was in 2nd grade they did a whole thing on the food pyramid. For their activities they had actually had food tasting where the teacher had brought different types of veggies, fruits, cheese, breads, crackers, etc.... they talked about how these foods give us good energy vs. junk food that doesn't. You could also do a lesson on physical fitness to help keep muscles strong. Also, since it's for really young children, can you compare humans to plants and what makes them grow? Since humans need more than water and sun, that might be something you can use as a filler for a small project. Sorry, that's all I got. Good Luck with coming up with other ideas!

You might check out www.schoolexpress.com They have alot of cool, free stuff that you can look at. I actually just came across it this week and have not had time to fully explore the entire site. There is alot on there to look at and pretty sure there is some preschool activities that would work with what you are doing.

Hi J.,
Contact a dietician at a hospital. I bet they will have everything you need. Just explain your situation. Good Luck! S.

Try mypyramid.gov, there is a section just for kids. Have them plan a snack or meal.

J.,

It looks like several people have given you wonderful ideas!

As they stated, there are a couple of ways you could go with your lesson plan.

A parallel between a plant and how children grow. If you wanted to go this route, you could use the book, "I'm a Seed." It is a wonderful easy read for preschoolers. I am making a huge assumption that you are doing the huge 9-12 step lesson plan for Drury (been a while since I did one). You would be able to show in your lesson plan how you how you are using different modalities and how the lesson plan will apply to multiple intelligences.

As you describe you procedure, your anticipatory set could be a brief explanation on how a plant is similar to a person using a live plant.

For the lesson you would read the story to the children. Then for input the children could answer questions about why they need water and sun to grow like the plant does.

For the Independent practice they could plant seeds that they would nurture to plants.

Another lesson plan would be to do one on a book similar to "The Berrenstain Bears and too much Junk Food." The good thing about this book is that it related to children of this age. You would set the lesson plan up similar to the one above.

For the Independent Practice you could do an exercise like the one Holly H. below describes.

There are also several other wonderful books out there that could be adopted for such a lesson plan, as others have described: How the Body Works; Watch me Grow: Fun Ways to learn About Cells, Bones, Muscles, & Joints." If you are having a hard time coming up with the book and you have to have the physical book, I recommend checking with your local elementary school. Some of the schools are still working admin days so you might be able to talk to one of the teachers.

When I had to do my health lesson plans, I borrowed a health book from my local elementary school first grade. I also have a very extensive library. :-) For the food pyramid, I got one from the health department. But sometimes those are too elaborate for the grade level you are looking for. The one in the Berenstain Bear's book is very simple and geared for this grade level and could be easily duplicated.

Unless you are presenting the lesson plan in class you probably don't need the book or the actual pyramid (unless they are now requiring you to turn in the full lesson plan complete with all resources). Although it sure does make completing the lesson plan a whole lot easier.

If you are interested in either of the books I mentioned give me a hollar off line. I probably still have a food pyramid in my MANY boxes of lesson plans if you need me to look for it.

Good luck! I hope my suggestions, added with the others gives you more ideas. If you want to talk off line give me a hollar!

N.

I agree with a couple of the ladies above. To me growing is so much more than nutrition. It's about growing mentally, emotionally and sprituality. I would focus on those along with physically and then I'm sure you'll have plenty to write about! Good luck!

I used to teach Pre K and now teach Kindergarten. I use a unit that is checked out from the JO Co Home extension office
You might try to contact Judy Kester she is in charge of the program I feel she would be a great resource to you. Here is her e mail:
____@____.com is very knowledgeble on teaching kids about good nutrition at their level.
Hope this helps.
Have a great day!
E.

How about some sort of "family tree" scenario, with how your family grows??? Just a thought?
T.

hi there

maybe you could try thinking about other ways we grow, like spiritually or emotionally or from babies to children to teens to adults to elderly...

just a thought...

mom of 2

I think you need to look outside the box on this one, you can grow more ways than physically. Your emotional growth, intellectual growth, spiritual growth, as well as physical can all be factored in here. Think about how people from infantcy to adulthood "grow" in each of these categories, what they need, want etc. Hope this helps.

I don't know if this would work, but in my dd's kindergarten class they studied 'what makes a plant grow' and the teacher then paralleled that to children----that we need food,water, sunlight......Maybe looking at those sort of books would be a jumping off point for you.

Hi, J.. As a preschool teacher, I plan a units involving this topic throughout the year. One of the units is on Nutrition and the food pyramid. I think of this as one of the areas where we grow. We also grow our mind by reading and learning. We grow emotionally by forming friendships. We grow by becoming more responsible and helping out our neighbors and environment. We also grow by taking care of our bodies with exercise and proper care at the doctor and dentist. All these topics can be incorporated in a lesson play, maybe taking one topic a day and doing activities and reading books about that topic. Do you need to just complete a written lesson plan, or are you supposed to carry the lesson plan out? I know some great books involving food, going to the dentist and doctor, friendship, etc. I also have songs for these subjects. Let me know if you need any specifics, but branch out from just the physical growing and it might help you come up with more ideas. Good Luck, and let me know if there is any more I can help you with.

Another place you could go could be your local WIC office. THey have TONS of pyrimid info. Also, you can go to your local Head Start office. I am sure they would have suggestions on "What makes us grow"...HTH

~A.~

J., Good Morning. I just recently purchased a book for our 9 yr old gr daughter. I found it at Wal-Mart tall paper back.
It is called ( i think) You and Your Body, had 3 little girls on the front cover. I didn't read the whole book before I bought it, but it looked like there was a lot of good information on all area's. Gene's, bones and muscles etc.

I think with Pre-K you just need to have it on their level of understanding. Simple things.

Good Luck hope it goes well and you receive alot of better ideas from these awesome moms out there.
K.
Nana of 5 gr kids.

I thing you could tie in growing flowers, trees, plants -- those are visual things most all children understand. Also with the growing plants you could tie in growing fruits and veggies and also that we use those things to feed the chickens that later become our chicken nuggets. Also sleeping helps us grow, by resting we our bodies can repair and rebuild. Knowledge helps us grow. There are SOOOOO many things that are essential to growth. Use the concepts that are easiest to illustrate on a child's level. You could make a chart -- What Makes Us Grow? Also ASK the children, sometimes their little minds are amazing.
Hope this is helpful :)

This is just an idea-you could do the lesson with the aid of flowers or plants. Them and us, need food, water, sun and air in order to grow. You could have them plant a lima bean and make sure they have all of the needed things to make their lima bean grow. (Lima beans grow very quickly). I do this type of thing with my 1st graders and they really enjoy it. Good luck!

You have lots of good suggestions on places to get stuff on Nutrition. You should also be able to find plenty of childrens books that talk about nutrition. I have also seen lots of books that talk about our bodies. If you wanted to take the route of explaining the body you could also probably contact local doctors and get info from them. Some may even let you borrow models to use. Good luck. If you ever need help on future projects I've done a number of lesson plans for college classes and may be able to help.

I agree with what everyone else has written, about comparing people to plants and also talking about how we grow physically, emotionally, etc. I would also recommend mypyramid.gov. They have some reproducables that you can use (at least they did last time I checked). Good luck!

A.

Readers Digest has a series of I Wonder Why... There is one titled I Wonder Why I Blink. It is full of information about your body, heart, lungs, hair, what we eat, etc. Also Macmillan has an Early Science Activities set that has two units: Good Health and Our Bodies. I am not sure if the information would be available on-line. Good luck!

J.,

Here are a couple of good children's books you might be able to use. "Me And My Amazing BODY" by Joan Sweeney and "Me And My Senses" by Joan Sweeney. These are scholastic books. Me and My Amazing Body talks about, What is under your skin? Why do you have Bones? What do your muscles do? Where does the food that you eat go? From your head to your toes and everything in between, this playful introduction to anatomy explains all the important parts of your body, what they do and why you need them in order to live, breathe, work and play. Easy to read and easy to understand, This book will enable even the youngest of children to appreciate their amazing bodies. That is what it says on the back of the book. Me and My Senses is a playful introduction to the five senses, it explains the function of each of the senses, the messages the eyes, ears, hands, nose, and mouth send to the brain, and the way the senses work independently and together to help children experience the sense-ational world they live in. Overflowing with colorful illustrations and easy-to-understand language. You could probably order them on www.scholastic.com or if you live in Kansas City North I could loan you my copies. Just let me know.----Good Luck J. C

Hi J.,
I am the Director of Nutrition Services for a 5400 student school district and this past year I implemented 2 new programs in our k-4 buildings. Eat A Rainbow and Fear Factor Vegetable.
Both introduced new, different and some times "scary" looking fruits and vegetables to the kids.
They LOVED it!
For the younger kids we did coloring pages along with the new food, for the older kids we did more "history of".
Even if they didn't try it, at least they looked at it and touched it will maybe try it next time.
The feed back I got form both student & parent was very positive.
I can definatly see this as being able to convert into a lesson, hope it helps.
Good luck
C.

Hi J., i am 52 have had 4 sons, 10 step children , many granchildren,my name is C.. My husband died of cancer in 05. 5 years before his death our parish nurse gave and still gives info out on health. Her topics are on things that make us grow and are healthy: fresh air,water, exercise,sunshine.
Then she went into vegetables and juicing. And eating raw vegetables(snacks and salads;you would be amazed at what you can put in a salad)and fresh fruit.she wuold prepare juices and salads for us to sample, and she talks of what comes from the earth and how those things grow. I hope this offers a little insight. This gave us 5 years more with my husband.

There are so many aspects to "grow" What makes us grow physically, mentally, spiritually..which is your focus supposed to be on? What age group it for? Has it been left up to you? Does your entire class have the same project? If it is your choice, to stand out from the class you could do a lesson plan on what makes us grow as a person. You can explain diversity and what makes us different and how despite all these differences we are all the same. How mankind can achieve so much more if we all work together, and let our differences fall to the side. There are really fun things you can do for this. For examle if you do it during nice weather you can have a bucket that needs to be filled in x amount of time, one child cannot achieve this, but together it gets done.
If it has to be on grow physiacally then look to the life cycle of the food we eat, as you are explaining how the food we eat grows you can tie it into how we grow. Planting a lima bean seed is always a kid favorite and they grow pretty fast. You can have one that does not get he things it need(to represent a human not getting food, water) and one that is very well taken care of, or one that gets the bare minimum and one that gets more.
Just some ideas, not sure you can use them. Good luck with your project!

I am a teacher and often refer to a website called: lessonplanz.com

You can also start off your unit with other life cycles such as the butterfly, frog, etc. This may help them with the concept of how things grow and then go to into human growth...baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult.

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for, but hope this may help you.

I'd like to help. Want to see other responses befor I expound. G.

There is a book entitled, You and Your Body by: Sally Hewitt that has great pictures in it and I used it when doing that lesson plan with my pre-schoolers. Also plant something as a class and use this to show the kids how it grows comparing it to our bodies. The internet has wonderful lesson plan ideas that you can use just google it.

I did a food pyramid project with my 4 year old preschool class. We cut out all kinds of food pictures from magazines, then glued the pictures onto paper plates. One plate had veggies, one had fruits, etc., and one had junk food like candy and soda. This was fine motor for cutting, sorting skills, gluing, and nutrition.