Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8

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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Nutrition, and supports the standard of understanding the importance of a balanced diet for personal health. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of creative projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students: 

  • What might happen to your body if you only ate dessert for an entire week?
  • Why do you think eating vegetables is important?

Step 2: BUILD BACKGROUND

  • Read the description on the Nutrition topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “In Depth” or “Sickness and Health”. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS

Assign Nutrition Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about nutrition while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Imagine you are the host of a food show. Create a tutorial to share a recipe for a nutritionally balanced meal.
  • Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying different types of nutrients and provide examples of foods that include each type. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a meme expressing the importance of balance in a healthy diet. 

More to Explore

Sortify: Nutrition: Challenge players to sort by attributes, food group and more in this learning game.

Nutrition Unit: Continue to build understanding around how nutrients support personal health by exploring more BrainPOP topics.

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments