Food Baskets for Nutrition

Grade Level: K-2

Academic Areas: Interdisciplinary

Duration of service: 1-2 Months

Character Virtues: Giving, Caring

Service Areas: Human Services

Service Learning Project:

During a unit on Nutrition, students will learn about food groups and learn about nutritional meals. They will learn about nutritional needs in their community by having representatives from local service agencies visit their classes. Students will organize a school wide food drive (or penny drive leading to a shopping trip at a local grocery). The teacher will contact local supermarkets to donate food. Students will decorate boxes, baskets or bags that will be used to distribute food. Students will make placemats and cards for inclusion in the baskets, bags or boxes. Students will sort food into boxes to include items from major food groups. Baskets will be distributed to local families by local agencies.

Learning Goal: Students will be able to identify the basic food groups

Standard: Health, Phys. Ed., and Family/Consumer Sciences #2

Learning Goal: Students will create healthy and nutritional food baskets for local families of various sizes.

Standard: Math, Science and Technology #1

Community need: High demand on local food pantries results in a lack of nutritional food for neighborhood families; local hunger.

Possible Community Partners: Social workers, school nurse/counselors, churches, grocery stores, neighbors, post office, Scouts and local service clubs.

Objective: Students will collect and sort nutritional food items.

Objective: Students will create and distribute food baskets and placemats to local families. Students will create and dis

Virtue: Giving

Objective: Students will use their time and personal resources to gather and create food baskets.

Virtue: Caring

Objective: Students will gain compassion for those less fortunate.

1. The class will create an "Ideal Healthy Dinner Chart" and keep an individual "5 Day Food Diary."
2. The students will compare and contrast the "Ideal Dinner" and "5 Day Food Diaries" using the Food Pyramid.

 Key Service Activities

1. Students will gather and sort various food items into baskets according to family size. These will be distributed to families determined by local service groups.
2. Students will create greeting cards and placemats to include in the food baskets.

 Key Reflection Activities

1. (oral) Students will share as a class how their Food Diaries compared with the Food Pyramid. Create a Yarn Web based on healthy food choices of students, i.e. "If you had three servings of dairy products on Monday please stand up." Throw yarn ball to standing students. Discuss positive and negative effects of their choices and why proper caring for our bodies is important. Brainstorm the effects that missing one or two meals a day would have on their health.
2. (written) Students will work in small cooperative groups to compile lists of reasons someone doesn’t eat three healthy meals a day. Next, they will formulate ways they can give of themselves to solve these nutritional needs. Students may share their lists/solutions in the form of posters or charts.
3. (performance) Each child will role-play the giving and receiving of the food baskets utilizing caring words and body language. After students have role-played each part, they will discuss their feelings about each role. Review and discuss any inappropriate behaviors.