Healthy Foods, Healthy Bodies

Healthy Foods, Healthy Bodies

This week I talked with the kids about making good food choices so that our bodies stay strong and healthy.

SONG:

A fun song/game at circle time is "Betty Balloon".  I learned this from a teacher years ago and am not sure if I have the correct name for the song, but for me I call it Betty Balloon.  I have a pink balloon that I drew a face on with sharpy.  This is Betty.  Then I sing a song to the children about her (they sing along too, it is very catchy).

Sitting on the park bench, 

chewing my bubblegum (pretend to chew gum loudly),

playing with my yoyo (pretend to release yoyo down and up with sound affect)

when along comes Betty Balloon.

(use balloon like a puppet)

Betty says "hello, I'm so hungry, do you have anything good to eat?"

I don't, but lets ask my friends...

(Now this is when I ask one of the children if they have any food to share. Whatever the child says talk about if it is a food that will give Betty lots of good energy and help her grow, then blow a little air into Betty to represent the food she has eaten.  Have Betty "run off" behind your back.  Then start from the beginning of the song and continue to sing the song again and again until each child has gotten a turn to give Betty some food.  Fill her up just a little each time so that she will be almost full when you get to the last child.  After the last child Betty will need to "burp", you let go of the balloon it flies over the children's heads and everyone gets a big laugh)

BOOKS:

The Gulps - by Rosemary Wells and Marc Brown

Eating the Alphabet - by Lois Ehlert

ART:

We made a watermelon shaker.  A neat art project and the kids can use it for a musical instrument when they are done.  Each child painted red in the middle circle of their paper plate and then green around the outside.  

When it dried we turned it over and place dried kidney beans in the middle (you don't need too many and any dried bean will do, just not too small. If it is too small they may fall out).

 Fold the plate in half over the dried beans and staple shut (teacher should do the stapling, but older children may be able to with assistance).

 Then have the children put the black "seeds" on the red part of the watermelon.  Usually I have them dip their finger in black paint and use their fingerprint dot as the seeds (the top one in the picture below).  But I was out of black paint the day we made these so we used black marker.  I liked the creativity this allowed.  Some children used the marker in an up and down up and down method to created dots.  Other children wanted large seeds and drew larger circles.

I think I like the marker method better as I always enjoy the children getting the most creativity they can out of their art projects!

MORE ART:
Another thing we talked about was keeping our teeth healthy and clean.  We took a picture of a mouth with teeth (done on cream colored paper so the teeth look dirty) and they used toothbrushes dipped in white paint to scrub and brush them until they were "clean" and white!  Easy and fun project that gives them good practice at using small circles on each tooth when they brush.

 

TABLE TOYS:

Fruit and Vegetable sorters:  Talk about the difference between vegetables and fruit (fruits have seeds, so tomatoes are fruits!) and have lots of pictures of them cut out (or draw some and cut them out).  Have them sort onto 2 different paper plates, one says Vegetables and has different examples drawn on it already, and the other says Fruits also with examples drawn on it.