Objectives
- State examples of healthy snack choices to fuel the body and brain.
Lesson Plan
The lessons in this unit help kids to understand that food is fuel. Food is what you eat and drink to give your body energy to move and think. Rather than classifying foods as good or bad, encourage children to stop and think, then choose the best fuel (i.e., foods that supply nutrition and energy, rather than empty calories).
You can extend a lesson with videos from the fit video series, What Food Does for Your Body. Each video (see the Extend the Lesson section of this page) highlights a food group or category, and serves as a great resource to introduce or review the benefits of eating a variety of foods.
For more information on healthy eating, go to ChoseMyPlate.gov.
Set The Stage
To use this with your students click here.
Captivate
What Do You Know About Healthy Snacks?
Students take a quiz about snack choices. They show their answers by standing on their right or left foot. Be sure to let your students know that they can use thumbs up or thumbs down if they don't feel comfortable with hopping on one foot.Educate
Learn to Make Healthy Snacks for You and Your Friends
Share some tips on making healthy snack choices easier, such as having healthy foods ready ahead of time (fresh veggies cut), placing portions of snack foods (nuts, cheese, etc,) in small bags, and or making snacks look fun (making faces or shapes with healthy foods). Next, have students draw their ideas for healthy snack choices.
Check for understanding: How can you make healthy snacks the easy choice?
Activate
Practice making Healthy Snack Choices
Encourage making healthy snack choices by asking students to draw a snack choice using My Healthy Snack printable. For example: crackers, fruit, and cheese make a healthy snack.Close the Lesson
Grade: 3-5
Time: 20 Minutes
What You'll Need
Resources
Materials
- Slideshow
Health Education Standards
- Standard 1: Core Concepts - Eat a variety of foods within each food group each day.
- Standard 4: Interpersonal Communication
- Standard 5: Decision-Making
Social and Emotional Learning Competencies
- Responsible Decision-Making
Extend the Lesson
- Play the fitGame, Fuel Tag.
- Learn more about ways to encourage kids to eat healthy foods.
- Watch a video from the What Food Does for Your Body video series to learn more about different foods: