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Eat The Rainbow – Weekly Tracking
Short description of activity: Find the rainbow in all of the fruits and vegetables you eat during the week.
Type of activity: Content Connection, Food and Nutrition
Minimum Time Needed for Activity: 20 minutes before and after week-long tracking
Grade Level: K – 12th
Subject Area: ELA, Math, Health, NGSS
Materials:
- Print one Eat The Rainbow Color Tracker for each student
- Crayons and markers
- Food Flashcards, or images of fruits and vegetables for discussion
Set up:
- Introduce a discussion of foods being in many different colors. Even some fruits and vegetables come in different colors.
- If needed, specify that for this purpose we are saying what color the food is when it is ripe to eat.
Play:
- Have students color the fruits and vegetables in each color category.
- If students can name other fruits and vegetables in that category, they may write or draw them.
- In the morning and/or after lunch, students enter the names of the fruits and vegetables they ate the night before, during breakfast and lunch, etc.
- Fruits and vegetables should be whole foods, not processed foods (strawberry jelly does not count)
- At the end of the week, have students answer the four questions on the second page of the tracking sheet.
- Encourage students to use more descriptive words than “yummy,” “gross,” “tasty,” and “disgusting.” Try to use words that describe texture or quality of the fruits and vegetables.
- Have students share their experiences with each other. What are the similarities or differences?
Variations:
ELA/Health:
- Have students use the experience/questions as a prompt for an opinion writing.
- Paragraph with opening statement, supporting ideas and closing statement.
- Essay with an opening paragraph, two supporting paragraphs that more fully explain supporting ideas and a conclusion.
- Use sight words, spelling or vocabulary words regarding the foods and color groups tasted..
- Write a short story to use many vocabulary and spelling words.
- Have students do research to identify nutrition facts about a ½ cup serving of one or two vegetables or fruits. Compare to other food in that color or other colors.
Math/NGSS:
- Have students create a list of fruits and vegetables tried in each color category for the whole class.
- Rank foods/colors in order of times eaten, dis/liked, etc.
- Sort fruits and vegetables according to seasonality or growing zone.
- Which were grown in your town? Grown in the school garden?
- Which traveled the farthest? Does one color travel farther than another?
- Which grow on a tree, on a plant or vine, or under the ground?
- Sort fruits and vegetables according to plant part
- Vegetables are part of the plant that we eat: root, stem, stalk, flower, leaf.
- Fruits are the product of a fertilized flower, and contain seeds..
- Represent the answers using a graph or table.
- Identify average, median, range, etc.
- Calculate percentages
- Can students identify trends?
Standards:
ELA Standards > Reading: Informational Text > Key Ideas and Details; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas; Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
ELA Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes; Research to Build and Present Knowledge;
ELA Standards > Speaking and Listening > Comprehension and Collaboration; Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
Math Standards > Measurement & Data > Represent and interpret data; Geometric measurement: understand concepts of volume
Health Education Standards: 1, 3, 4
PE Standards> The physically literate individual demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical activity and fitness; The physically literate individual recognizes the value of physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, self-expression and/or social interaction.
NGSS Standards> Life Sciences> From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes