Create YOUR Plate with MyPlate!

(1 point)

Target Audience (1 point) The target audience for our lesson are children aged 6-12
years old (school aged).

Summary of audience characteristics, justification for the nutrition education and

learning strategies) (3 points) Keep this section to 1 short paragraph.
The children in this group are between the ages of 6 years to 12 years old. The center is
located in Princeton, New Jersey. Children in New Jersey attend before or after care in
addition to school due to their parents’ work schedules. According to New Jersey Child
Care Market Survey of 2012, 74.4 % of school age children attend before, after, or
summer care (New Jersey Child Care Market Survey, 2012). The hours spent at these
programs vary, but according to the same survey, most before school programs start at
7 am (47.2%), while most after school programs close at 6 PM (60.8%) (New Jersey
Child Care Market Survey, 2012). This indicates that the parents have less of an
influence on what their children are eating for a majority of the day. This leaves the
responsibility to the children to be independent of their eating habits. Research indicates
that over the last several decades American adults and children are increasingly
consuming larger portions, most notably in fast food restaurants and at home (Nielsen &
Popkin, 2003; Piernas & Popkin, 2011). In a study conducted by the University of Texas
they found that, “Children who reported more frequent exposure to Fruits and
Vegetables... were more likely to report selecting ‘healthier’ entrées at school lunch.
This data suggests that exposure to, and the consumption of, a variety of Fruits and
Vegetables may make children more willing to select a wider range of Fruits and
Vegetables, and other healthy entrées (Korinek, 2013).” These studies show why
teaching children the basics of nutrition including food categories, portion sizes, and
how to differentiate between “sometimes” and “anytime” foods, is important. For the
maximum results of the lesson the "play approach" will be used. This is effective in this
age group because there is neuromuscular skill development which allows kids to
participate in games and work together in groups more efficiently (Holli, 2002). The
games, hands-on learning, group work, and comparisons can further build motivation to
change dietary habits, which can also add to the behaviorally-focused nutrition
education approach (Holli, 2002).

Lesson Definition and Goal (2 points) What does this lesson address and aim to
achieve overall?
Identifying appropriate portion sizes, recommended dietary components based on
MyPlate, and distinguishing between “sometimes” and “anytime” foods.

Objectives (9 points) By the end of the lesson, what will the participants achieve?
Write three S.M.A.R.T. objectives - 1 cognitive, 1 affective, 1 psychomotor/behavioral.
1. Participants will score above 70% on grouping foods into the correct food groups
in the post test.
2. At least half of the children’s favorite foods that they circle will be healthy choices
as measured on part 2 of the post test.
3. More than 50% of participants will circle to the right of the “just a little good” face
when rating how willing they are to add more healthy foods to their diet as
measured on the post-test.
Preparation Time (1 point) How long will it take to prepare for the lesson?
3-5 hours
Lesson Time (1 point) How long will the actual lesson take?
The lesson should take about an hour to complete.

Materials (2 points) What is needed for the lesson? Don’t forget to list the take
home materials. Include a photo of the supplies/materials if applicable
1. Five signs labeled with food categories
2. Pretend food: plastic food, laminated paper food
3. A large version of a MyPlate
4. Recipe cards/flyer
5. Pre and post tests
6. Coloring pages
7. Pencils
8. Puzzle page
9. PowerPoint (and Tv/ computer for this)
10. 2 signs labeled with “sometimes” and “anytime”
11. Crayons
12. Measuring cup set and bowls
13. Oats to measure

Procedures and Activities

Preparation (2 points) List what needs to be done in preparation for the lesson
such as printing certain handouts, setting up tables/displays in a particular way,
etc.
● Print pre/post tests
● Create a giant plate (for the kids to drop the foods in)
● Print handouts/recipes for parents
● Print puzzles/ coloring pages for kids
● Set up the flyers in the four corners of the room
● Set up chairs for the kids or a place to sit
 ● Buy food items for measuring
● View the PowerPoint with pictures for the game, portion size examples, and
sometimes and anytime foods
● Set up test kitchen with measuring cups and food
● Buy pencils/ crayons

Lesson Activities (10 points) (this is the actual content of the lesson. Write it as a
direct instruction to the teacher)

Schedule
Intro (5 min)
Pre-Test (5 min)
MyPlate Lesson (10 min)
My Plate game (5-10 min)
Five corners MyPlate game (10min)
Sometimes and Anytime Food Game (10min)
Food measurement experiment (10 min)
post - test (5 min)

1. As the children are entering, hand out coloring pages on food safety and
disperse crayons
2. Ice breaker/Hook - how do you get them interested in the topic
a. Ask the children their name and their favorite food that starts with the first
letter of their name.
3. Present interactive PowerPoint- Slide with piece of plate highlighted that will be
discussed, next slide with food examples that fit. After each one, go around and
ask the kids a food they like to eat within that category
4. Once all the groups have been presented, hold up certain plastic foods and see if
they know where it belongs. Put in giant plate, ask kids if they want to come up
and put food in the giant plate. (Give each kid a piece of plastic food),
5. Next, game time! Put 5 flyers around the room, shout out or have a giant picture
of a food on the PowerPoint have them skip to the corner that they think is the
correct food group for that food (have some hard ones)
6. Game- sometimes or anytime foods! Introduce the concept and give examples in
the PowerPoint. Then set up two sides of the room; a flyer with the word
“sometimes” and a flyer with the word “anytime” have someone with their eyes
closed on a chair in the center. Once a food is shown on the power point they
must get to the correct corner and do so as quietly as possible. The person in the
 chair has to point to the side they think everyone is on. It's the whole class
against the person in the center!
7. Last Activity- portion sizes- have pictures on the PowerPoint of the correct
portion size of each food group including portion sizes of unhealthy food.
8. Test Kitchen- Interactive measurements
a. We will show the students the appropriate measurements of oats and
cereal at the front of the classroom.
b. Then, we will break them up into two lines, oats and cereal respectively
c. Students will each have a chance to measure out both oats and cereal
with the provided measuring cups to see the appropriate portion sizes for
their age group.
9. Close the class with a post test (to assess objectives, and give handouts/recipes
for parents)
10. Revisit the coloring pages if children have to get picked up

What steps will the audience go through to learn the lesson? Be specific, number
all of the steps required, and keep the steps in the correct chronological order.
Use a first/second person format (direct instruction to the teacher).
Example:
Ask the participant: “would you like to spin the color wheel?”
Once the participant selects a color, ask him/her to name two fruits/vegetables in
that color.

Slide 1
1. “Welcome to our nutrition education course, how are all of you today?!”
Children will respond to the question.
2. Introductions of all participants
3. “Today we will be teaching all of you about food categories, portion sizes, and the
foods that you should only eat sometimes and foods that are always okay to eat.”
Children will wait for the presentation to begin
Slide 2
4. “We will start off the class with an icebreaker activity, we will go around the room
and each one of you will tell us and the rest of the class your name and your favorite
food”
5. The child will state his or her name and their favorite food, you may start from any
spot in the room and go around until all children have participated.
Slide 3
6. “We will now pass around a fun worksheet to start off the lesson and to see how
much you all already know about food”
7. Pass around the pretest sheets to all the children and wait for them to complete.
 8. “We will now collect all of your sheets and move on with the lesson for today!”
Slide 4
9. “This is MyPlate, it is an easy colorful tool used by many people to help categorize all
of the foods you eat every day. As you can see there are 5 main food groups including
grains, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and protein.”
10. Once the children are done looking at the MyPlate figure, change the slide to teach
them more in depth about each food group.
Slide 5
11. “We will start off talking about the grains group. This includes the breads you eat
such as on sandwiches for lunch and toast in the morning. It also includes the pasta
used for your macaroni and cheese, the cereal you eat before school, and the tortillas
used for your tacos! Basically, there are two types of grains, the light and the dark. The
light flours are used in cakes and white bread and the dark grains, which are your whole
grains, are used for whole wheat breads. These dark grains help you to have more
energy to play each day!”
12. “Did you know kids your age need to eat 5 ounces of these dark grains every day?”
13. Wait for the children to give you a response
14. “I know you may be wondering what 1 ounce looks like, this can be one slice of
bread, one cup of cereal, or half of a cup of pasta.”
Slide 6
15. “Can someone tell us what their favorite grain is to eat”
16. Wait for the children to respond.
17. “That’s so awesome! Let’s go ahead and move into our next food group.”
Slide 7
18 “We will now discuss vegetables, how many of you enjoy eating vegetables?”
19. Encourage the children to respond.
20. “Vegetables are such an important part of your diet, here are some examples you
might recognize. We have the dark green vegetables like broccoli, spinach, kale, and
lettuce. Then there are the starchy vegetables like potatoes. We also have our
red/orange vegetables like carrots, peppers, squash, and pumpkins. Some vegetables
you may not know so much about are the beans and peas.”
Slide 8
21. “Kids your age should eat one and a half cups of vegetables each and every day. A
cool little trick you can do at home to make sure you are eating that amount is to see if
its the size of your fist like here in this picture (point out the picture of the broccoli and
fist on the slide), everyone make a fist and hold it up!”
22. Have the children hold up their fists to reiterate your example, then wait for them to
settle down before proceeding.
Slide 9
23. “Here we have pictures of a tomato, broccoli, and carrots, what is your favorite
vegetable?”
24. The children will respond with their favorite vegetable. If a child says they do not like
vegetables encourage them to at least choose one by listing several vegetables.
Slide 10
25. “Next we will talk about fruit, by a show of hands who enjoys eating fruit?”
26. Children will raise their hands.
27 “Great! Some fruits that you may know include berries, pears, apples, bananas,
applesauce, 100% fruit juices, grapes, melons, tomatoes, mangos, pineapple, oranges”
28. “Children your age should eat one and a half cups of fruit everyday, an easy
example to show this amount is an apple and a half like this picture right here (point out
the apple picture on the slide).”
Slide 11
29. “I will now go around the room and you will tell the class what your favorite fruit is”
30. The children will state their favorite fruit, once completed proceed with the
presentation.
Slide 12
31. “Protein is the next food group, this includes meats like beef, pork, chicken, turkey,
and fish. As well as beans, peas, eggs, soy, nuts, and seeds. Each one of you should
eat 5 ounces of protein each day. You can always eat a combination of these meats or
if you like one more than the other you can always stick with that.”
32. “A cool way to see how much 5 ounces is to measure your protein next to a deck of
cards”
33. Pick up the deck of cards and pass them around the room to the children.
34. “Some common examples of proteins you all may recognize are peanut butter,
grilled chicken and these beans.”
Slide 13
35. “What protein do each of you enjoy eating?”
36. The children will respond with their protein.
Slide 14
37. “Wow that’s great! We will now move onto the last food group, dairy.”
38. “Dairy includes things such as milk, cheese, yogurt, and even ice cream! You should
all be eating 3 cups of dairy every day. Dairy is important for keeping your bones strong
with its Vitamin D and calcium. Three cups can be easily attained by drinking a glass of
milk with each of your meals like the three glasses shown here (point out the glasses of
milk picture).”
Slide 15
“What protein do each of you enjoy eating?”
The children will respond with their protein.
Slide 16
39. “Here we have a bin of plastic foods and a giant plate modeled after the MyPlate
here on the screen. Each one of you will get a piece of food and we will take turns
having you place it into the correct category on the plate.”
40. Have one of the instructors hand out one piece of plastic food to each child.
41. Take turns having each child come to the front and place their item in the correct
category.
Slide 17-30
50. “We will now transition into our next activity for today, this one is going to be more
active”
51. “Everyone please take a peek around the room at the labeled five posters. You will
notice they are labeled with the food categories we just reviewed. Here is a breakdown
of the game. We will call a food and you will decide which category this food belongs in.
Once you’ve chosen you can safely run over to the correct food group.”
52. “Everyone please be careful when getting up to run over to the corners, we do not
want anyone getting hurt.”
53. “Let’s begin! Our first item is celery, on the count of three you can run over to the
correct poster.”
54. Give them one-minute time to find the correct poster, then repeat for the next 13
items.
55 Once the game I completed please have everyone return to their seats and settle
down.
Slide 31
56. “I hope everyone enjoyed that, now we will move onto our next lesson. This lesson
is going to help you all decide what is considered ‘always’ foods and what is considered
‘sometimes’ foods.”
57. Name off each item from both lists on the PowerPoint slide.
Slide 32-44
58. “Now we have another fun activity to help you better understand these concepts.”
59. Read the instructions of the game from the PowerPoint slide.
60. Set up the two labels in the front of the classroom on opposite sides.
61. To choose which child goes first, number the children 1-15, having 1 go first.
62. Repeat all steps of the game until you’ve completed all 12 items.
Slide 45
63. “If you all have energy left, we have one last activity for the day. This will help you
with measuring food.”
64. Set up the three containers on the tables located in the front, filled with cereal, oats,
and water respectively.
65. Have the children line up and take turns at each station.
66. Once everyone has had a turn at the stations, have them sit down for their posttest,
Slide 46
67 “This activity wraps up our lessons for today. We will now pass out the same
worksheet you had in the beginning of class to see how much you’ve learned”
68. Give them about five minutes to complete the posttest then collect.
Slide 17
69. During dismissal, please hand each parent a take home packet of materials to help
them instill the new learned knowledge at home.
70. Ensure to thank everyone for joining and smile!

Take Home Material (2 points) What is it and how will this help the audience
practice what they just learned?
1. Coloring handouts from pre and post class
This is for engagement prior to the lesson to get their brains focused on foods. Also, it
will provide a fun hard copy of MyPlate for future reference. Parents can keep this in
their kitchen for reference as well.
2. Healthy recipe
An easy, go to nutritious meal that can be manipulated to please every child’s eating
habits. It is hands on, so the children and parents can become involved in healthier
meal preparation together. This recipe can also be brought to school by the children and
brings together the multiple food groups learned in class.
3. Handout with examples of age and portion appropriate meal ideas.
A go-to-guide to help busy parents make proportionate meals that fits their child’s
nutritional needs to reinforce the concept of portion sizes.

Modifications (2 points) What can the educator do if the lesson is not engaging or
appropriate for the audience? Is there a complimentary extra activity if the
audience is highly engaged?
- If the lesson is not engaging, an extra activity that could be done is have the
children make their own MyPlate using traditional paper and crayons. They can
list their favorite foods in each of the categories. This project will be calmer than
the four corners game if things are getting out of hand. It can also be an
additional fun activity to do if the children are super engaged, and time allows.

Evaluation (5 points) Describe how you will determine what the participants
learned and whether they achieved the lesson objectives. Include the plans for
“pre” assessment – i.e., what the participants knew already before this
educational activity. Attach the actual evaluation instruments/questions.
A pre-test will be handed out before class and a post test will be provided after class
(presented to the students as a game). The Pre/ posttest will have the same questions
to measure the impact on participants. It will include matching of a food item into the
appropriate food group category in order to test the cognitive objective. There will be 10
foods and the children will draw a line to which food group they think the food belongs.
Getting more than 7 of the 10 correct on the post test will fulfill the first objective. For the
second portion of the test, there are pictures of 4 “sometimes” foods and 6 “anytime”
foods. The children are asked to circle their favorite foods from the list. Children circling
more than half of their favorite foods being healthy choices will meet the affective
objective. Finally, the last portion of the pre/posttest will be asking “how willing are you
to try healthy food?” to measure the behavioral objective. If students circle above “just a
little good” on the hedonic scale provided, the behavioral objective is met.

References (4 points) Cite any websites, curriculum, handouts or books that were
used to help develop this lesson. Attach copies of resource materials (handouts,
etc.) if used to develop the lesson content, even if you only adopted the idea but
developed the rest on your own.

Holli, Betsy B., and Judith A. Beto. Nutrition Counseling and Education Skills for
Dietetics Professionals. Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2014.

Korinek, E. V., Bartholomew, J. B., Jowers, E. M., & Latimer, L. A. (2013). Fruit and
vegetable exposure in children is linked to the selection of a wider variety of healthy
foods at school. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 11(4), 999-1010. doi:10.1111/mcn.12035
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mcn.12035/pdf
“MyPlate.” All About the Dairy Group, United States Department of Agriculture, 26 Jan.
2018, www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate.

“MyPlate.” All About the Fruit Group, United States Department of Agriculture, 26 Jan.
2018, www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate.

“MyPlate.” All About the Grains Group, United States Department of Agriculture, 26 Jan.
2018, www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate.

“MyPlate.” All About the Protein Group, United States Department of Agriculture, 26
Jan. 2018, www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate.
“MyPlate.” All About the Vegetable Group, United States Department of Agriculture, 26
Jan. 2018, www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate.

“MyPlate.” Choose MyPlate, United States Department of Agriculture, 26 Jan. 2018,

www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate.

“New Jersey Child Care Center Market Survey.” New Jersey Department of Human
Services., New Jersey Department of Human Services., 7 Sept. 2016,
hdl.handle.net/10929/40743.

Nielsen S.J., Popkin B.M. Patterns and trends in food portion sizes, 1977-1998
JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 289 (4) (2003), pp. 450-453

USDA. “Activity Sheets: Maze.” Choose MyPlate, 5 Apr. 2018,

www.choosemyplate.gov/kids-activity-sheets.

WebMd. “Kids' Recipe: Ants on a Log.” WebMD, WebMD, 25 Oct. 2016,

fit.webmd.com/jr/food/article/ants-on-a-log-recipe.

“Words To Live By: Eat A Rainbow | Worksheet.” Worksheet | Education.com,

Education.com, 22 Nov. 2010, www.education.com/worksheet/article/life-learning-eat-a-
rainbow/.