Lesson Plan #1

Right before spring break we had our first lesson. We were only able to go to Greenvale because of scheduling conflicts at St. Dominics. We did a 30 minute lesson, but afterward we all agreed it felt like 10 minutes it went by so fast! The 3^rd graders were very excited to have us in the classroom with them, and participated in our activities enthusiastically. Here is an outline of our lesson plan:

Essential Question/s:
Why would you want to grow food in a garden? What do gardens look like? What is healthy to put in your body?
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Identify plant and its produce, Distinguish between plants
Judge food based on nutritional value
Consider various modes for consuming and cooking produce (recipe to be taken home)

Materials, Tools and Resources:
Apples to Apples food game
Pictures and matching cards, food samples
Recipe form
Today’s Prep Work:
Approve of Apples to Apples game traveling to GVP
Make recipe form, translate to Spanish
Print pictures for taste testing matching cards
Look up info (nutrition facts, where it is grown etc) about specific plants
Activities:

• Introduce ourselves, our project, why we’re here (5)
• Split into two groups, do two different activities: (25)
• Apples to Apples nutrition game
• matching
• recipes if there is time

· Closure!

Hook:

• Introduce ourselves
• names
• senior ES majors
• We’ll be growing a garden together
• learning about growing food
• later, we’ll plant seeds and take care of the garden outside
• Today, we’ll be talking about...
• foods we grow in gardens
• how and why fruits and vegetables are good for our bodies

Procedure:

• Introduce ourselves, our project, why we’re here (5)
• Split into two groups, do two different activities: (25)

· Apples to Apples nutrition game (10)

Each student gets 5 playing cards. Each card represents a single food (tomato, wheat, corn, broccoli etc). On one side is a picture of the food item and its name, and on the other side facts about that food (potassium, protein, calories etc). The moderator (one of the St. Olaf students) has a separate stack of category cards. These cards have questions like: what food is a root vegetable? which food has the most protein? The moderator chooses one card and reads it to the group. The students then select one of their cards that they think answers the question the best without looking at the back, and sets it down on the table. Once all students have made their selection, everyone turns over their card and we see which person/people win that round. Once a single round is finished, the cards that were used are discarded and the students get to take another playing card, so that they always have 5 choices in their hand.

· Matching (10)

We will have 5-7 food samples that are pre-cut and ready for students to taste test. Student will get one of each sample on a plate. We will then have a matching set of cards that are pictures of each of the vegetable/fruit samples but that might not have the actual vegetable/fruit in the picture. We will play a matching game to see if students can match their food samples to the correct pictures. As each sample is correctly matched with its picture, the students will be able to eat the sample on their plate. When we are eating the samples we will ask/discuss where the food was grown, how it is good for our bodies, and what kinds of dishes it might be in at home or in the cafeteria.

· Recipes (5) (All together at end)

Give each student the recipe form. We will ask them: do you know what a recipe is? And discuss with them why a recipe might be a good thing to have. We will ask them to take the recipe form home to their parents to fill out and bring back to class.

Assessment:
The students will make wiser decisions in the “Apples to Apples” nutrition game.
Participation in the matching and game activities
Closing:

• What we did today...
• talked about some of the plants we’ll grow this spring
• talked about nutrition in vegetables
• What we’ll do next time...
• planting seeds of the plants we’ll grow in the garden