Nutrition

As noted in our post about apples, we discussed healthy foods and what foods are good for our body. As an extension of that discussion we did this quick and easy project. (In my opinion, any time you have an excuse to outline the kids' bodies and do something with coloring, cutting or gluing, you are going to have a great activity. There is something especially fun about working on something that is life size.)What you Need:
butcher paper (we used the rolls from IKEA)
cut outs of various types of foods

What we did:
1. We traced one of the student's body onto the paper and I outlined it in black to give it more definition.
2. Each child got a few food cards that they had to decide whether they were healthy foods or not. If they were healthy, they taped them up on the body. (We want to put healthy foods into our body.) If they weren't healthy foods, we put them to the side. I explained that it is okay to eat those foods sometimes if you only have a little bit of them.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

C is for Cookie . . .

". . .that's good enough for me!"

You can't have a letter C day without this song!

Art & Math: We made Cute Caterpillar Chains. To enhance the project, the kids made patterns with their chains to work on their math skills.
You need:
8 - 12 1 x 10 inch strips
1 - 2 x 10 inch strip
googly eyes
2 small strips for antennea (Curl the strips with a pair of scissors)

Math: Sharing Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is one of my favorite activities!
It is adaptable for preschool to 3rd grade. In our setting it teaches sharing things equally and counting.
We read The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. It is a book about a brother and sister who have 12 cookies to share, but more and more neighbors keep coming so they have to share with more people.

You need:
Cookie Crisp Cereal
12 small individual pictures of a child or 12 "friends" to share with per child - You could easily use those counting bears instead of pictures. I used a picture like this:
Each student started with 2 people and 12 "cookies" (the cereal). They shared their 12 "cookies" evenly between the 2 people and counted how many cookies each person got. We then added 2 more people so there were 4. They shared the 12 cookies with the four people and counted how many each person got. You can then repeat the process sharing with 6 and 12 people.

Snack: C shaped Cookies!

A is for Apple

Our first official letter of the day day was the letter A. We did all things apples!

Math: I made a sheet with 5 apples on it. Each apple had a corresponding 1 - 5 number next it. The students identified which number was which and glued that many "seeds" onto each apple. We used beans because I didn't have seeds, but we easily could have used the seeds from our apple smile snacks that we made later if I had thought ahead.

Art: We read the book Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert and talked about healthy eating habits. We looked at pictures of different foods and decided whether they were healthy or unhealthy. We used those pictures later for another activity. Next, we made our own "healthy" apple trees using finger paints. (Sorry for the lack of pictures with the kids, but it's hard without a camera!)
For this project you need:
- green, red, and brown paint
- construction paper

1. Paint the side of your hand and part of your arm brown and stamp it on the paper to make a trunk.
2. Use your pointer finger to dab or paint green on the top of the trunk for leaves.
3. Use your pinky finger to lightly dab small dots of red for apples.

(idea from http://www.dltk-kids.com - This is a great resource of activities for different subjects, ages, group sizes, and abilities)

Snack: We made apple smiles for snack using apple slices, peanut butter, and mini marshmallows.

Teeth Brushing Song

Here is a song we learned for tooth day.

ARE YOUR TEETH CLEAN AND WHITE
Tooth Brushing Song

(Sing this tooth song to the tune of “Do Your Ears Hang Low”)

Are your teeth clean and white?
Do you brush them left and right?
Do you brush them in the morning?
Do you brush them every night?
Do you brush them up and down?
Do you brush them round and round?
Are your teeth clean and white?

Teeth

When I was teaching third grade, I was the health specialist for all of the third grade classes. Twice a week I got to teach them great stuff about how our body works and what we can do to keep our minds and body healthy. We got to do a lot of cool stuff like look at the effects of smoking on a real pig's lung and study what the inside of our body looks like. I guess I have never really lost that passion because I already want to incorporate some of those things into our curriculum.

We had a tooth day in class. We talked about our teeth, counted them, and discussed how to take care of them. We talked about tooth brushes and toothpaste. If it weren't the day after labor day, I would have called a local dentist to get some free goody bags full of great stuff for our teeth or you could take a field trip to the office. After we talked about teeth, we "brushed" a paper tooth to practice how long to brush and how we need to brush the whole tooth. Each child got a brush to use and I made a toothpaste/glue mixture. I would say it was 1/4 toothpaste and 3/4 glue. They brushed their tooth and when it dried it looked like it had toothpaste on it and it had that great minty scent.

Here is the outline I used for the paper teeth. You can re-size it to fit your needs.