Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Part A: Tuning In

15 minutes

Part B: Food Around The World

25 minutes

Part C: How To Make A Healthy Plate

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will

our bodies need a variety of foods to stay healthy
the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

Success criteria

Students can

identify familiar ingredients in unfamiliar meals from around the world
create a meal that is in line with the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

Part A: Tuning in

Step 1

Ask students to suggest some of their favourite foods or meals. Keep a list of their suggestions on the board. You might also add a little picture.

Step 2

As you go, talk about the different ingredients each of the meals contains in relation to the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

For example: "Fish tacos contain some yummy fish. They also have lettuce and tomato which are delicious and healthy vegetables, we should try and eat lots of these! There is some cheese in them as well, a little bit of cheese is good for us. Sometimes people put avocado in their tacos. Avocado is a good kind of fat. Who likes to put chilli powder on their tacos? It's nice to use different herbs and spices rather than just salt."

Step 3

Display this graphic to help students understand the guidelines on healthy eating patterns. You can find more detailed explanations in the teacher content information above.

Step 4

Cut out the images from the Food Flash Cards. Show them to students one at a time, and ask them to connect them with one of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns above. For example, the carrot would fit in number 1: plenty of fruit, vegetables, and wholegrain cereals.

Collect food items like the doughnut and cake in their own section - we'll talk about these in a moment.

Part B: Food around the world

Step 1

Display these images of lunchboxes from around the world.

Website: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/school-lunches-around-the-worldn_6746164

Step 2

Explain that students around the world eat different things for lunch. As you go through the images, have students identify the different ingredients of each meal.

Step 3

Draw out students' thinking by asking: Do you think all the different lunches are healthy? Why or why not?

Lead students to an understanding that even though kids around the world eat different things, all of these meals feature foods from the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

Step 4

Students will naturally raise the issue of 'unhealthy' foods. Lead students to an understanding that some foods are 'discretionary' foods to be eaten occasionally. Draw on examples collected from the Food Flash Cards earlier in the lesson, such as biscuits, lollies and pizza. These are nice as a treat, but eating them too often can make our hearts and bodies unhappy and struggle to work properly.

Step 5

To facilitate this understanding, have students stand up again. Ask students to imagine a heart that is happy and strong because it has eaten in a way that follows the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns. Have students clap in time to the beat of a healthy heart. Ask students to move their body, or move around the room, as if their heart was keeping that happy rhythm.

Step 6

Stop students. Ask them to imagine a heart that has been eating too much cake and too many lollies over many years and is feeling lazy and lethargic. Have students clap in time to the beat of a sluggish, blocked-up heart. Ask students to move their body, or move around the room, as if their heart was struggling with that rhythm.

Step 7

Foster a connection between the energetic heart being fuelled by the foods from the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns, and the sluggish heart not having access to those nutrients because it has eaten too much discretionary food.

Part C: How to make a healthy plate

Step 1

Explain to students that it is important to eat a mix of different things throughout the day in order to stay healthy and give our body what it needs to grow and work.

Step 2

Display this image of dumpling ingredients.

Source: https://redhousespice.com/dumpling-fillings/

Explain to students that it is possible to get all the nutrients we need in a variety of different foods. We don't have to be limited to a plate where fruit and vegetables, healthy protein and whole grains are all separate. When preparing food, to make sure you have the right mix of ingredients, you can lay the food items on the plate before combining them together, like this healthy chicken and bean bowl:

Step 3

In the image above, invite students to observe that the plate is divided approximately like this:

One-quarter protein
One-quarter grains
Half veggies
Small amounts of spices and oils.

Draw a circle on the board, or alternatively, use a paper plate. Demonstrate for students how to construct a balanced meal featuring an appropriate quantity of the five different foods and nutrients they have learned about today.

Students can use their bodies as a rough guide to help them measure the size of portions they're consuming. Making a fist shows us a good size for our portion of protein. Making a flat hand and looking at the palm, without including the fingers, shows us a good portion of carbohydrates. The rest of the space should be filled with vegetables.

Whilst younger students might consume smaller portions in general, it's important to remember that the energy requirements of growing kids can vary considerably.

Check out the Australian Dietary Guidelines (https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines) for more information on portion sizes and food quantities.

Step 4

Using coloured paper, paper plate, glue and scissors, students independently create a healthy meal that features the nutrients covered in this lesson.

Encourage students to be creative in their choice of food and how they represent it, as they like. Some suggestions include using a paper plate as a taco shell, shredding yellow paper to make the cheese, scrunching up white paper to make the shredded chicken, and cutting circles of red paper into a tomato.

You could make a traditional plate of lean meat and three veggies, rolling green paper into balls to make peas, scrunching up white paper for the mashed potatoes, and a rectangle of pink paper for a piece of salmon.

Alternatively, students could use the images on the Food Flash Cards to create a healthy meal featuring foods from the five sections of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

Reflection

Ask students to name one food or meal and what aspect of the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns it covers.

Remind students that there are many different ways to create meals that cover the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

Remind students that discretionary foods, such as cake or soft drink, can make our hearts unhappy and struggle to work properly if we eat them too often.

Differentiated Learning

Extension - Students can take a photograph of their own lunchbox or their dinner plate at home that evening and label this image with the five parts of the Heart-Healthy Eating Patterns.

Note: If students submit these to the teacher or compare their plates with friends, it is essential to avoid any food shaming. Comments and feedback should concentrate on the positive healthy parts of the meal.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Jump Rope For Heart - What's For Lunch?

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students understand...

Success criteria:

Students can...

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