Let’s Read About
Healthy Eating
(Preschool) 

Lesson Summary

Lesson 1 – Germs, Germs, Germs
Germs describe in rhyme how they attack the body to cause illness and how careful people make life difficult for germs. Activities teach children to wash their hands carefully. Children learn the Rub-a-dub Song to help them wash their hands for 20 seconds.

Lesson 2 – Bread, Bread, Bread
Baking bread, sharing bread, eating bread—one of humankind's most basic concerns—is explored through pictures. Activities encourage children to try different kinds of bread in sandwiches or form bread dough into different shapes.

Lesson 3 – Oliver's Vegetables
Oliver visits his grandparents and hopes to find the potatoes so he can have the only vegetable he likes—French fries. But first he must find the potatoes in the garden. In the process, he tries and likes all the vegetables! Children see and taste different vegetables from the story.

Lesson 4 – Eating the Alphabet
A colorful ABC book presents pictures of different fruits and vegetables with interesting facts about common and uncommon ones. Activities include tasting more fruits and vegetables and using them in drawings and printmaking.

Lesson 5 - From Grass to Milk
How grass is eaten by cows, the milking process and how milk is processed and transported to the store for us to buy. Activities include seeing and tasting different milk foods and making ice cream in a can. (Show-Me Standards: IIB: 1a, 2a)

Lesson 6 - It's a Sandwich
Children learn that a sandwich is bread with something inside. They also see how sandwiches can be made with many kinds of bread and fillings. A multicultural look at food from around the world. Activities include tasting sandwiches made with different fillings and breads or looking at different types of beans.

Lesson 7 - Bread and Jam for Frances
Picky eaters will pay attention to the story about Frances, a badger who only likes to eat bread and jam. After her parents begin serving her bread and jam for every meal, she decides that eating lots of different foods is nice. Activities include a new foods tasting party and moving to the foods on parade march.

Lesson 8 - Corn is Maize—The Gift of the Indians
Children learn how popcorn, corn on the cob, tortillas and cornbread all came from one amazing plant nourished by Native American farmers thousands of years ago. They taste vegetable pizza made with a corn tortilla and paint with corncobs.

Lesson 9 - From Wheat to Pasta
Pasta comes in many shapes and is a great source of energy. Children learn how wheat is grown and harvested and made into pasta. They taste grain foods and use pasta to make jewelry and create portraits.

Lesson 10 – Jody's Beans
Children learn about gardening as Jody and her grandfather plant scarlet runner beans. They create beautiful layers of dried beans in plastic cups and make bean shakers to use as rhythm instruments.

Lesson 11 – Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth
Eating lots of healthy food and taking good care to teeth is the theme to this book. The children learn to brush and floss their teeth after tasting Happy Apple Smiles.

Lesson 12 - Handa's Surprise
The children taste some of the fruits Handa carried in a basket on her head when they make fabulous fruit kebabs. They get some physical activity while playing a version of musical chairs called Musical Fruit.

Family Nutrition Education Programs, University of Missouri
1205 University Avenue, Suite 300, Columbia, MO 65211
Phone: 573.882.9760  Fax: 573.884.5449

HES Extension Site Manager exthesweb@missouri.edu last updated: 05/29/2009 Copyright  ADA Equal Opportunity