To kick off our Healthy Choices Unit, we begin with nutrition and our FOOD RULES project.  Check out our lessons below.

Day 1:

• Meditation
• What does eating healthy mean?  Have students draw a food plate in their notebooks and write at least five foods that go in each section of the food plate
• Discuss
• Watch HBO Documentary Cafeteria Takeover

What goals did the Rethinkers have?  How did they put their goals into action?  Did they reach their goal?  How does this movie relate to nutrition?

Day 2

• Journal (What is one food rule that your family strongly believes in? Explain.
• Introduce Food Rules book, giving examples of a few food rules.  Ask students why they think Michael Pollen thought this rule was so important he put it in his book.
• Show Video:

• Explain FOOD RULES assignment (See rubric below)

Students will get into groups of 2 or 3 for this assignment (To choose our groups, we had our students write two people who they feel   comfortable working with on a notecard and one person (if necessary) who they have a hard time working with).

Explain assignment using rubric as a guide.  Emphasize to students their target audience is elementary school children.   Our goal is to have our kids present their food rules explanation along with their prototype to a group of elementary age students. Food Rules Rubric

Hand out food rules (hand picked by us) from Michael Pollan’s book.  Food Rules for Project

• Begin working in small groups on food rule explanation and prototype. We gave our kids two 1 hour classes to work on the explanation and two 1 hour classes for the prototype.  For the prototype, you will want to have the students bring materials from home (possibly trash such as milk cartons, cans, boxes, ect) and you will also want to have other materials available for them to use.  Some examples:  tissue paper, paper plates, tape, hot glue, boxes (got ours from our ayis (cleaning ladies)), markers, crayons, toliet paper rolls, canvases (for drawings if that’s what a group/s want to do), etc.  Anything really:)   They have to be creative with their prototype plan!

Day 3

• Working on Food Rule explanation.  Teacher conferencing with students making sure they are writing to their specific audience

Day 4

• Prototype Time! Let the constructing begin!

Day 5 

• Finish Prototype
• Print out paragraph

Day 6

• Practice presentations (make tweaks, edits, additions… with the help of friends)

Day 7

• Present to elementary class/es!

 

Revised Version (Spring 2015)-Food Guidelines around the World!

7th Graders!  Here’s your opportunity to learn about food and dietary guidelines all around the world to help our SAS community come up with food guidelines for our own cafeteria.  Here is the link to the most recent Food Based Dietary Guidelines around the world.  Below is your note-taking sheet that will help you with this project:

Food Guidelines around the World Notetaking Sheet S2015

Food Guidelines Project Rubric S2015