Thank you Council For Responsible Nutrition for sponsoring this post. I am proud to be one of the 170 million Americans who take dietary supplements each year!
Healthy Body Learning Unit for Preschoolers
As a mom and a nurse, I feel like it’s important to spend time teaching my children about how and why we need to take care of our bodies. We do several things on a daily basis that are key to our health and wellness. We drink lots of water and milk, limiting juice and sugary drinks to very rarely. We encourage fruit and vegetables throughout the day and often as good snack choices. Everyday we try and make time to spend outside exercising or being active. Often it is taking walks/jogs as a family, jumping on the trampoline or riding bikes.
I’ve been working on putting a Healthy Body learning unit together for John and I to work on next month. This is going to include key learning points, hands on activities and printables.
Healthy Body Learning Unit: Learning Points
Follow the healthy eating plate for kids.
- Discuss eating a rainbow, indicating that we need to eat foods that are colorful i.e. fruits and vegetables. Remember that potatoes and french fries don’t count.
- Limiting carbohydrates (tan foods) and when they are a must choose whole grain options.
- Educate on healthy protein selections such as beans, peas, nuts, seeds, and other plant-based healthy protein options, as well as fish, eggs, and poultry.
- Dairy is key for calcium that kids need for growing and healthy bones. Choose unflavored milk, plain yogurt, small amounts of cheese, and other unsweetened dairy foods.
- Drinking water is the best choice when thirsty. Water should be offered with every meal and snack and when being active. It is ideal that a preschooler consume 5, 8 oz glasses a day.
- Daily Multi-vitamins help us bridge a gap. There is no such thing as a perfect diet! Dietary supplements such as multi vitamins can help fill nutrition gaps and promote overall health and wellness for the many children who do not get enough essential nutrients from diet alone.
- Daily active time. Everyone should actively move for 30 minutes each day. Walking, running, playing physical games like tug of war with friends, or jumping on the trampoline are great ways to encourage children to get moving. There are wonderful yoga videos geared toward children online at no charge that can be used for small space demonstration.
Healthy Body Learning Unit: Hands on Activity
Supplies that are needed for this activity include rolls of craft paper. Each child will need a piece cut as long as them while laying down. You will also need washable markers for each child. Have the children pair off with a partner. One child will lay down on the paper while the other child traces their body. Have the children switch and trace the other child. Now that both children have their paper with their traced body, have the children draw in their face and clothing however they’d like. Once complete, assist them in drawing in their favorite activity to stay healthy in one corner of the paper. In another corner have them draw their favorite healthy foods. Have each child write their name on their paper so that they can be proudly displayed in the learning area.
Healthy Body Learning Unit: Printable Game
Print out our Healthy Body Learning unit matching game and integrate it into your teaching time as appropriate. Use each of these activities to help reinforce the key learning points for this learning lesson.
Healthy Body Learning Unit: Snack
To prepare your healthy body snack, you will need the following:
Cutting board
Appropriate knife for cutting vegetables (think kid safety)
Small Ramekin or bowl
Hummus
2 stalks of celery (cut into 4 pieces)
6 baby carrots
4 cauliflower florets
2 broccoli florets
2 cherry tomatoes
1 bell pepper (Sliced)
3 mushrooms (sliced)
2 snap peas
1 cucumber (sliced)
2 black olives sliced
After everyone has washed their hands, assemble the healthy body using the various vegetables provided.
I would love to see how you use these great tools for your healthy body learning unit. Share on social and hashtag #lifeanchoredDIYS and tag us at @lifeanchored.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.