CIRCLE TIME
There are lots of components involved in Nutrition and Health. We are going to simplify them for these young minds to be able to pick it all up. You could cover each one of these on different mornings so it isn't too much information all at once.
Food for Health: Healthy foods, or what I like to call "all the time foods", are those foods that help our bodies stay healthy. Our bodies need nutrients in order to work properly. There are 5 main nutrient groups. Our bodies need each of these foods in order to keep working and to help us to stay healthy. They are: Grains, Proteins, Fruits, Vegetables, and Dairy. See if the kids know how to classify these simple foods. Which group should bread be in? How about carrots? Yogurt? Chicken? Apples? Talk about these foods and make sure they know which group they go into.
Exercise: Keeping our bodies moving is an important part of staying healthy! Running, jumping, walking, dancing, biking, and other movements like these are all considered exercise. Sitting on the couch is not exercise. It is ok to sit still sometimes, like when you are learning in school.It is a good idea to move your body throughout the day in order to stay healthy.
Sleep: It sounds crazy but sleep is also very important to your health! If you don't get enough sleep, your body has a hard time staying healthy. While you are sleeping, your body is able to fight off infections and re-energize.
Hand washing: Germs are everywhere! Our bodies are fighting off germs all the time. A great way to help keep germs from invading our bodies is to wash them away. We get germs on our hands by touching something that has germs on it. When we touch our eyes, nose or mouth with our hands that have germs on them, we transfer those germs from our hands to our insides. Once inside us, the germs can grow and grow and make us sick. Washing your hands often can help to keep this from happening!
**A really easy way to help understand how germs can spread is to hold a pile of craft pom poms in your hands and pretend to sneeze. When you sneeze, toss the pom poms away from you. This will demonstrate how germs spread when you sneeze and why it is so important to cover your mouth and then wash your hands!
BIBLE
"God Made Me" Lesson on Ministrytochildren.com http://ministry-to-children.com/god-made-me-preschool-lesson/
Psalm 139:13-14-
For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
BOOKS
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Veggie-Garden-Kimberly-Williams-Paisley/dp/1596372575/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380503221&sr=8-1&keywords=henry+and+the+hidden+veggie+garden
A great little book that helps young kids see how terrific eating vegetables can be!
http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Much-Junk-Food/dp/0394872177/ref=pd_sim_b_3
Mama Bear lays down the law when she notices that Papa and the cubs are getting too chubby. With the help of Dr. Grizzly's slide show on how the body works, the Bear family makes a healthful adjustment in their diet and fitness habits. "A most enjoyable introduction to good nutrition and exercise."--(starred) Science Books & Films.
READING & LETTER OF THE WEEK
Letter - E (short E)
http://www.first-school.ws/t/alpha1/e.htm
Print the worksheet from first-school.com This is a great beginner worksheet to introduce the short E sound and the words that begin with that sound. There is also writing practice for the letter E.
Reading - short E
http://www.readingbear.org/ Do the short E lesson. These lessons really help young children to understand how the letter works in the words and how to sound it out. A great tool!
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f Do the "en" "et" lesson. Wait until next week to do the reading (Peg the Hen)
SCIENCE
Food Groups
We are going to expand on our Food Groups lesson. Categorizing the different groups is an important factor in being able to choose healthier food options.
This will be a 2-part game. The first part will be to sort many different foods into their correct categories. The second part will be to make healthy meals using these foods by adding them to a MyPlate poster.
You will need a bunch of food. You can use items from your play kitchen, your real kitchen, or print pictures out from the internet. Make sure you have multiple examples from each food group and include some junk food as well. They need to be able to spot the "sometimes foods".
You will also need a poster board for sorting. Divide the poster into 6 sections. Label the sections FRUIT, VEGETABLE, GRAIN, DAIRY, PROTEIN and OTHER. Glue a picture to each section which represents the group.
Also print out http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/downloads/MyPlate/ColoringSheet.pdf the worksheet. You can have the kids each do their own meal or place them into groups for this activity.
As a group, discuss the food groups. Place the food pictures in a bowl or basket and ask each child to pick one. They are responsible for placing their food into the correct food group. Talk about it and help them work through the different choices.
Once all of the foods have been properly categorized, then it will be time to create a healthy meal. Use the same pictures you just sorted and the "My Plate" worksheet and have the kids create a well balanced meal. When everyone is done, discuss each meal and why it is or isn't full of healthy choices!
MOTOR SKILLS
Gross - Fun Ways to Exercise!
You can buy "fitness dice" or you can easily make them. Use 2 square tissue boxes. Cover each side in paper. One of the dice will be numbers so write the numbers 1-6 on it. The other dice will be an activity so write things like "jump up and down", "hop on 1 leg", "crawl on the floor", etc.
The idea is for each child to roll both dice and then do whatever the dice say. If they land on 6 and hop on 1 leg, they will hop on 1 leg 6 times.
Fine - Putting Marbles to "Bed"
You will need marbles, a teaspoon, a bedding "egg crate"
Cut the bedding into 1 foot by 1 foot squares. Put the marbles in a bowl. The kids will need to get the marbles from the bowl to the little craters in the bedding by only using the spoon. This is great for fine motor practice and also follows with our theme.
MATH
Measuring
This time we will be using measuring spoons and cups for learning about measuring. We are going to learn about measuring food. When cooking, we often use these items to help us make sure we are putting the right amount of ingredients in our dishes.
Provide a 1 cup, and ½ cup measuring cup and a 1 TBSP and 1 tsp. You will also need some dry rice and salt.
Have the kids use the 1 cup to scoop out the rice. This is 1 cup. Dump it back. Now use the ½ cup and spoon out some rice. This is a half of a cup. Pour the half a cup of rice into the 1 cup. This will help to show that it is a half of a cup.
Now use the spoons with the salt. Spoon out 1 TBSP. Dump it back and spoon out 1 tsp. Pour the 1 tsp of salt into the TBSP. 1 tsp equals 1/3 of a TBSP.
Now get out a 2 cup measure. Ask the kids to find out how many half cups of rice it takes to make 2 cups.
How many TBSP of salt does it take to make 1 cup?
This is a really fun activity and they won't even realize they are doing math!
Germ Counting
You need a 3 compartment plate.
You also need craft pom poms. Place 2 pom poms in one of the small compartments and 1 in the other. Ask the kids how many 2 plus 1 equals? 1 by 1 place the pom poms from the small compartments into the large compartment while counting them. Then put them back and allow the kids to repeat.
Continue with other amounts.
**This is a great way to introduce addition!
COMMUNITY
Nurses
http://www.first-school.ws/t/alphabet/coloring-pages-dn/nurse_b.htm
Print the coloring page. You can also talk about the letter N.
Nurses are people who work with doctors in offices and hospitals who help to take care of sick and hurt people. Nurses are very caring and patient people. They enjoy helping to make people feel better.
ART/CRAFT
Art - Rainbow of Food
Print out a variety of different foods in the rainbow colors. You can use strawberries, tomatoes, salmon, etc for red. Orange items could be oranges (obviously!), goldfish crackers, cheddar cheese. Yellow could be squash, lemons, bananas. Green items are spinach, green apples, green beans. Blue could be blueberries, blue cheese, or blue corn chips. Purple items include eggplant, purple grapes, or purple cabbage.
Give each child a piece of construction paper and a glue stick. Ask them to sort the foods by colors and then make a rainbow using the foods.
Craft - All the time food VS Sometimes food
You need pictures of healthy choices and some "junk" food and paper plates. You also need glue.
Draw a line down the middle of the plates and draw a smiley face on one side and a frowny face on the other. Allow the kids to choose foods and glue them to their plates. Talk about why the "all the time foods" are great to eat all the time and why we should only eat the "junk food" some of the time.
COOKING
Well Balanced Snack!
You can pretty much do what you want with this. Just be sure to choose items from the food pyramid that you can talk about. Maybe have whole grain crackers with cheese and some grapes and carrot sticks. Or you could have apple slices with peanut butter, celery sticks and whole grain goldfish with milk on the side.
