Activity 1: Choose MyPlate

1. Review MyPlate with students, and discuss the role of nutrition in growth and development.
2. Provide each student with materials: crayons, scissors, glue, paper plates and an assortment of grocery store ads and other food pictures.
3. Ask students to create their own replica of MyPlate by sectioning off their plate with the different food groups. Include a paper circle cut-out to the side for dairy. It may be helpful to display the MyPlate Activity Poster so that students can reference it to create their own plate.
4. Have students cut out foods from the grocery store ads and food pictures and glue them onto their plate to create a healthy “meal.”
5. Discuss the importance of balance in a diet and making healthy choices. Ask students if the meals they created with food cut outs represent a balanced meal. How many servings did they include in each food group? How many of the foods they chose are highly processed?
6. Identify serving sizes of various foods in each food group. The Food Models Kit (see Materials) is an excellent resource for providing a visual representation of serving sizes. If you use the Food Models, have students place them on their plate in the correct food group, building a meal in which approximately half of the servings come from fruits and vegetables. If you do not wish to use Food Models, information on portion sizes can be found on myplate.gov.
7. Provide students with grocery ads and shopping lists that call for specific quantities of five items included in the ads.
8. Have students complete the activities on the accompanying Healthy Choices activity sheet.
   • Answer key to hamburger servings: bun = 2 grain servings, 1/2 cup onion & tomato = 1 vegetable serving, 1 oz. cheese = 2/3 milk serving, 3 oz. beef patty = 1 meat serving.

Activity 2: Think Your Drink

1. Ask the students to name different drink choices, and list their responses on the board.
2. Show the class some beverage containers. Ask the students how we can tell if drinks are healthy or not. Show the locations of the nutrition fact labels on the containers. Explain that we can look at the nutrition fact labels to determine whether or not drinks are healthy. These labels tell us what ingredients are inside our drinks and how many calories, sugars, fats, vitamins, and minerals the drinks contain.
3. Provide each student with a copy of the Think Your Drink chart or project the chart for the whole class to see. Explain to the students that when choosing healthy drinks they should specifically consider the amount of calories and sugars compared to vitamins and minerals.
4. Ask the students to use the Think Your Drink chart to determine which drinks on the class list are healthy choices. Explain that water, low-fat milk, and 100% juice are healthy drink choices. Water is essential for our bodies and contains no sugar or calories. Low-fat milk contains calcium which is important for overall health. When we aren’t getting enough calcium in our diets, our bodies take calcium from our bones, which causes our bones to weaken. 100% juice provides us with important vitamins and minerals, but also contains natural sugars. Daily intake of 100% juice should be limited to 8 ounces for adults and 4-6 ounces for children. Eating whole fruits is a better option for obtaining these vitamins and minerals.