Balanced Diet
StartSmart Pilot School : Ho Yan Kindergarten (Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen)
《Understanding the Nutritional Values》
Food Pyramid is essential to our health
Stage 1: Introduction
Some children may develop preference for certain foods. They often frown at vegetables but may grin at meat and snacks like sweets, cola drinks and potato chips. Even if some say that they like eating vegetables and fruits, often they are tongue-tied when being asked about the food’s actual nutritional values.
In the StartSmart@school.hk Pilot Project, the Department of Health organised different talks and workshops for school staff and parents. Through various activities, children learnt about the Food Pyramid as well as the principles of healthy eating. They were encouraged to try a variety of foods to prepare for a healthy lifestyle.
Ho Yan Kindergarten made use of story-telling, cooking, discussion and physical activity sessions to teach children in details about a balanced diet. Large-scale campaigns, such as the Joyful Fruit Day, were held to promote various fruits to children. Besides, the ‘dinner record sheets’ were distributed to facilitate family participation; in this way, teaching and learning were not only confined to pupils, but their parents were also educated and benefited.
Stage 2: Start Smart!
Live: Story-telling
Objective: To help children understand the significance of a balanced diet, to consolidate their knowledge of the Food Pyramid, and to let them know how much, in terms of proportion, of each kind of food they should eat.
Time: 30 minutes (plus another 30 minutes for physical activity)
Materials: The storybook ‘No More Fussy Eating’, the Food Pyramid for Children (aged 3-6), a puppet, a food basket, and toy food.
Let’s GO!
- The teacher tells the story ‘No More Fussy Eating’ and then the children discuss it with each other.
- Then the teacher asks the children questions regarding the story, such as: Which character dislikes vegetables? Why does he/she go to see the doctor? As the character changes his/her habits after seeing the doctor, children will then review their eating habits too.
- The teacher shows the Powerpoint file of the Food Pyramid for Children (aged 3-6). Children have to discuss the different categories of food and compare their positions and portions.
- Children have to pick food items from the basket as food for the hungry puppet and discuss about whether they have made a healthy choice.
Live: Obstacle Course
Objective: To stimulate children’s interest in physical activity, and to show them how to make healthy choice of food.
Time: 30 minutes
Materials: A balance beam, hula hoops, a basket, plastic toy food items, soft mattresses, and a 4-layer metal rack (to represent the Food Pyramid).
Let’s GO!
- Children have to crawl across the balance beam. Then they hop over the hula hoops, pick up a toy food in the basket, lie on the soft mattresses, roll over them all, and run to the destination.
- After that, they have to place the plastic toy food at the correct place on the Food Pyramid. Run back to the starting point.
- The teacher checks if all toy foods are categorized correctly along the Pyramid. Review the types of food and the recommended intake.
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