Food
pyramid parties and other
classroom cooking ideas |
Granny's
Garden School
Keeping kids in touch
with nature
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The Potato Project
My second grade students, mainly Spanish speakers/readers,
live in Pajaro—a rural and isolated area surrounded by fields growing California's
bounty of produce. Yet their exposure to the variety of foods available
in our area is limited. Take potatoes for instance—when we first started
teaching about food and nutrition, most kids knew potatoes only as French
fries! So my fellow teachers and I worked with the nutrition education
specialist and cafeteria manager to create The Potato Project. Who would
have thought students could learn math, language arts, science, health,
music, art, and history from the humble potato? Students planted potatoes
in barrels, cared for the growing plants, documented plant growth, and
weighed varied sizes of potatoes. They learned about the role of potatoes
in the Irish Famine, memorized and wrote poems about potatoes, and surveyed
classmates on their favorite ways to eat potatoes. Students categorized
potatoes and toppings into food groups, learned their nutritional value,
and tasted potatoes prepared in a variety of ways. Finally, students illustrated
an English/Spanish recipe book on how to bake a potato and shared it with
their families at home. Many parents reported that they made baked potatoes
for the first time and loved them! The real life experiences with
foods (growing, harvesting, preparing, and eating) make the lessons more
meaningful and long lasting for both the students and their families. |
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| When the second-grade teachers approached me
(the cafeteria manager) about my role in The Potato Study, I thought, “I've
never done this, but it sounds great!” The next thing I knew, I was baking
potatoes for all the second grade classes, and providing toppings, too
(cheese, sour cream, broccoli, salt and pepper). The students were clearly
proud when they harvested the potatoes, and excited when it was finally
time to eat them. Students voted on their favorite toppings, and shared
what they learned with their families. I love the way that this kind of
activity gives me menu-planning ideas and increases support and visibility
for the child nutrition program. The best part? Getting to see all that
the kids had learned by studying potatoes, and knowing I had a role in
that. It was great working with the teachers, too, and really feeling that
we are an educational team. And with all the details—scheduling, purchasing,
and other logistics—it takes a team effort! |
First
Person: Pyramid Parties
Last year, when I was in third grade, some Moms
brought cupcakes for a class party. That was okay, but not too exciting.
This year, we've had some awesome parties —and us kids got to plan them
ourselves! Actually,
our teacher helped out a lot, and the lady who
plans the school lunches (she’s called the food service director) helped,
too. We’d been learning about the Food Guide Pyramid—what foods belong
where, why there are more breads at the bottom, and other stuff like that.
We weren’t too thrilled that all the party foods we liked were in that
tiny top triangle. But things got more interesting when our teacher said
we could plan a class party using foods from another group. And then she
told us we could fix the food! We picked the milk group for our December
holiday party. I thought, “Great, what are we gonna do—taste different
kinds of milk?!” But some kids thought tasting different kinds of cheese
would be yummy, so we planned the party around that. We added crackers
(from the bread group) and fruit and juice (from the fruit group) to make
our menu. The food service director gave some SHAPE money to the teacher
to buy
the food. She invited us to the big school kitchen
to prepare the food on the day of the party. We all had to wash hands,
put on aprons and hats— cool! Before all this, our teacher helped us figure
out how many slices of
cheese and how many crackers we would need (kind
of fun math) and what good nutrition cheese gives our bodies. When we got
to the kitchen, we supervised the grown-ups who were slicing the cheeses,
including some kinds I’d never seen before. We then helped put them on
trays with the crackers in neat patterns. We washed the fruit and helped
pour the juice. That afternoon’s party was delicious—I’ll never forget
it. And I even liked most of the cheeses I’d never tried before. When Valentine’s
Day was coming up fast, our teacher said we could just bring sweets for
our party. Me and some other kids raised our hands and asked why we couldn’t
have another Pyramid Party, ‘cause we liked those better. She said, “Okay,
if it’s food that’s easy to fix.” So we chose the fruit group for our party.
We learned about fruits grown in California— and some I’d never heard of—and
why fruit is healthy. We liked so many kinds of fruit that in the end we
had to take a class vote. We added vanilla yogurt and pretzels to make
our party menu. We helped get the food ready on party day: washed the fruit,
spooned yogurt onto plates, and put pretzels in bowls. Yum! Now I sometimes
fix a snack like this for my sister and me at home. |
Veggie
Omlet - What Smells So Good?
A wonderful smell emanating from the third period
health class at Vaca Pena Middle School in Vacaville wafts down the hallway.
Today a visiting chef is demonstrating how to prepare an omelet using some
of the school garden’s vegetables. As class begins, there is a buzz o f
excitement among students. Two staff members from the school cafeteria
enter, wearing smiles and brightly colored smocks. The teacher gives a
“Classic Omelet” handout to each student. As student helpers and the chef
cook, students follow the demonstration, filling in the blanks on how to
make an omelet. At the end of the period, students sample the creation
and get their the homework assignment: to cook the omelet that they just
saw demonstrated in class, then answer some questions and have their
families fill out an evaluation. The bell rings and off they go to their
next class as the next class lines up to enter. The teacher shakes each
student’s hand as they walk in the door. Little do they know that she has
Glo-Germ® powder on her hands. Later she will use a UV light to expose
germs still lurking on their hands even after they have washed them prior
to cooking. MS |
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