I'm wanting to do a study on nutrition/healthy eating with the girls but not finding many resources or books. Any recommendations?
4 and 6 I just found a bunch at Enchanted Learning. I think my library's search engine is messed up at the moment- I tried searching for books and found lots of links to building your own workshop!
Oh, DUH! You have it at the bottom of your signature!!! Glad you found something! What I have would be REALLY too much; it's for high school!
I'm usually the first to turn to books, but I think Nutrition is something you live, more than something you teach. Learning about healthy eating yourself and practicing it daily will do more to educate your kids than looking at a colourful pyramid. Our son is hypoglycemic and it's very important that he eats well. So when I'm cooking, I talk about why I've chosen the foods I have. I talk about what different foods do for us - for example, dark leafy greens have more vitamin content than the paler ones like Iceberg lettuce, which is basically just water and a little fiber. Whole grains versus enriched white flour, additives and preservatives, what's really in hotdogs, glucose versus fructose, etc... When I'm shopping, I get the kids to read labels with me and we choose the best foods we can based on their nutritional content. I have them to help me prepare meals. And to keep things fun, I experiment with recipes from all over the place. We've cooked steaks in peanut butter and soy sauce! I grow veggies in the backyard every summer, and the kids help. I actually have a daily menu posted on the fridge, so that if they get hungry they know exactly what's available and when. It cuts down on arguments. We also discuss messages in advertising, both positive and negative. I always emphasize that it's fine to leave food on your plate. Doesn't mean you'll get something different (I'm not a short-order cook!), but if you're not hungry, then you're not hungry, and that's perfectly okay. Plates get scraped into the compost, and recycled back into the earth to help grow more food. Nutrition is an ongoing conversation, all the time.
I think it's both. Yes, you need to live it, but at the same time, the kids can learn things like the Food Pyramid, and how many servings of each are needed, and how the different vitamans and minerals are needed for our body, how some your body will store up and others will be discarded, etc.
You can probably ask your pediatrician or county health office, they usually have little color style books and worksheets they hand out to kids on food pyramid, brushing teeth, and exercising ect. I know my pediatrician hands out sheets about the importance of hand washing. The kids like them.
When Ems was younger, I printed the Food Pyramid off the internet along with a vitamin chart. We did exactly what Jackie shared in her post. We did both; live it and understand why our body needs the nutrients and how it is used.
Here are a couple sites that look like they might have interesting stuff: http://www.nourishinteractive.com/hco/free_printables http://www.mypyramid.gov/kids/
I was also going to suggest http://www.mypyramid.gov/preschoolers/index.html My son started showing interest in nutrition when he was about 4. Started asking "is this healthy?" for everything he ate. He didn't eat french fries for a year and a half LOL Now he'll ask "is this like lemonade?" (meaning not UNhealthy but not nutritious either LOL) So we classify everything as either unhealthy, nutritious, or 'like lemonade' LOL instead of just healthy/unhealthy.
I had a bunch of links that might help, but I cant post until I have been a member for a while, so I will just add them to my signature. There are a lot of games, and quizzes that may prove helpful. The first one is a free brain pop video and quiz.
Also, if you do any kind of 4H cooking project, they are FULL of nutritional information. And ANYONE can buy a 4H project book very reasonably.
Go here: http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/kids/nutrition-pyramid.asp Fun curriculum broken down by age groups. Cute stuff!
