Winter Wellness

Today was Winter Wellness day at our school! We did a bunch of great activities, such as fort building

ABC hunting

using an obstacle course, making winter pictures, and doing the Limbo. It was a great day overall. At the end of the day, we had a school-wide Wellness Assembly and our class sang the song "Party Broccoli" with a fifth grade class. It was really cool, and the kids did well (we've been practicing all week!).
It was a fun day, and a wonderful start to February Vacation!

You are what you eat!

Today, I did a lesson on physical activity and why it's important to stay active. After the lesson, we brainstormed different ways that they could stay active.

Later in the day we made healthy people! The kids loved it! First I laid out the food cut-outs across all of the desks like this:

I made sure there were some tricks in there like cake and ice cream and candy (they didn't pick any of them!). Then, I gave everyone a paper bag, and they wrote their names on them:

After, I explained my expectations and wrote a checklist on the board for the students to reference to if they forgot what to do next:

The students did their shopping and wrote a list of the foods that they picked. Later, I had them get their shopping bags out and they made "healthy people" with their healthy foods. I gave them examples to reference from, but they were pretty creative!

He's riding a skateboard!

His name is Mario!

A "healthy princess"

After we shared them (and named them, told everyone what they eat, etc.), I made us a new bulletin board to show them off:

It came out great! <3

Healthy Habits!

Today we did a mini lesson on healthy and unhealthy habits. I read the book I Know How to Brush My Teeth by Kate Rowan (which was cute, but a little more detailed than I needed it to be), and then we talked about healthy and unhealthy habits. We made this T chart:

Some of the things listed on the unhealthy side were a little stretched, but they really enjoyed making the chart. After we made the chart, we did a sheet about brushing our teeth. On the sheet, they had to draw their smile, write how many teeth they've lost, and then write a sentence about why they are glad they have their teeth. They liked drawing their teeth, so I put the pictures up above their cubbies with the words "Our Class is Healthy". It looks like this:

I also switched out some of the books on the book display this week:

Tomorrow we're going to talk about staying active and make healthy people! I'm excited! :D

A "Smooth" Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!
This is the Valentine holder that Kelly made for me (because I had a day-long meeting):

Anyway, today in class we did food riddles! When I had made the plan to do this I didn't think the kids would love this as much as they did! They turned out so good!

 We glued each part on either side of a piece of construction paper and they walked around and asked each other their riddles. They loved it. I also put together our book, and we will draw in the pictures tomorrow!

Lastly, my roommate came in at the end of the day and we made smoothies while the students were opening Valentines. We pulled up groups of four to the table and they got to add all of the ingredients themselves. The smoothies were called "Go Green" smoothies, and they had kiwi, green grapes, spinach, yogurt, apple juice, and bananas in them. They were kind of sour, but most of the kids liked them!

All in all, it was a great day (and now I have mounds of chocolate)!

Nutrition

Last Monday I started my first unit! I decided to do my unit on nutrition because it's around that time of the year and also because one of my roommates is in the nutrition program (so I have plenty of resources).  Nutrition has really turned out to be fun, but most things are in first grade :D.
We started out with K-W-L anchor charts:

I also made other anchor charts to enhance their learning, and to make nutrition more visual. This is what they looked like at the beginning of the week:

I introduced the new nutrition guide (MyPlate) and we talked about one food group each day of last week. When we talked about how much of each food group was necessary(with a powerpoint), we added an amount of that group that would fulfill our everyday requirement. After we learned about each food group, we ended the lesson by filling out our nutrition packets and then "adding a scale to the dragon". This consisted of drawing and labeling a scale-shaped piece of paper with a food item that would fit in the food group of the day. Now, our anchor charts look like this:

 On the fruits day of our unit, we made observations in our nutrition packets about two bananas and how they looked outside and then inside. Since the insides were the same, we talked about how bananas can get bruises but can still be healthy inside and compared the banana's peel to human skin.

In addition to our lessons on fruits and vegetables, we did a lesson about colorful fruits and vegetables and what they do for your body:

Every day we talked about different nutrients and what they do for your body (in kid terms), as these nutrients were mentioned when talking about each food group. I thought it was great to get them acquainted with these terms, and they really like to use them!

Today was the 100th day of school, but we tried to weave in nutrition a little bit by having the kids generate sentences about nutrition. We wrote all of the sentences on the board so that no one had the same one, and then they typed and printed all of their sentences during computer lab. These sentences will form a class nutrition book.

That's it so far!