Gregory, The Terrible Eater
Author: Margaret Sornenson;
School or Affiliation: Holy Rosary School, ID
Endorsed by: These lesson plans are the result of the work of the teachers who have
attended the Columbia Education Center's Summer Workshop. CEC is a consortium of teacher
from 14 western states dedicated to improving the quality of education in the rural,
western, United States, and particularly the quality of math and science Education. CEC
uses Big Sky Telegraph as the hub of their telecommunications network that allows the
participating teachers to stay in contact with their trainers and peers that they have met
at the Workshops.
Date: May 1994
Grade Level/Subject: 3-4; Science, Health, Math skills
(graphing, addition, and division)
Overview:
This is an evaluation project for a Science or Health unit on the basic food group,
good nutrition, and food sources of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.
Purpose:
The purpose of this activity is for the students to review and demonstrate their
understanding of the need for balanced meals and an understanding of the food sources for
proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, and vitamins.
Objectives:
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of the four basic food groups.
- Students will construct a balanced menu.
- Students will use food advertisements to determine the best buys for their menu
selections.
- Students will present their menu orally to the class and be able to defend their
selections.
- Students will construct a graph to illustrate the total cost differences in their menus.
Resources:
Newspaper food advertisements
Graph paper
Children's book Gregory, The Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat
Activities and Procedures:
- Have students save food ads from local papers for a month prior to this assignment.
- Read the book Gregory, The Terrible Eater, by Mitchell Sharmat and then discuss
with the class if Gregory had gotten some good advice for his eating habits? Ask the
students if their parents have ever tried this approach to entice them to eat foods that
they dislike?
- Review the four food groups and sources of proteins, carbohydrate, fats, vitamins and
minerals.
- Divided the class into groups of three or four students each.
- Assign the groups the projects of planning a three meal a day menu for five days.
- Use the newspaper food ads to figure the cost of their menus. Stress that economy is
important.
- Each group presents their menu to the class, and must be able to defend their
selections.
- Record the total cost of each menu, and have each group construct a bar or line graph to
show the differences in the menu costs.
Tying It All Together: This is a culminating activity.
Useful Internet Resources:
American Heart Association
http://www.amhrt.org/
CyberNutrition Archives
http://chd.syr.edu/chd/CyberNutritionArchives.html
Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC)
Follow this directory path: NAL Information Centers Food and Nutrition Information Center.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic
gopher://www.nalusda.gov/
ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education --
Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Division
http://www.ericsp.org/hprdtoc.html
The Nutrition Expert
service. http://www.alaska.net:80/~tne/
Tufts University Nutrition Navigator
http://navigator.tufts.edu/
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