Shopping with MyPlate: Activity Guide

MyPlate is more than a fantastic guide to healthy dining! Much of its advice can also be applied to healthy shopping. You may remember the post Shopping with MyPlate: A Handout. The leader guide that goes with that handout is too good not to share, so here it is! How will you use your copy?

Shopping with MyPlate: Activity Ideas

Make a List! (Kids) Explain that, in order to have meals like MyPlate, people have to fill their shopping carts like MyPlate too. Find out who has gone to the grocery store with their parents. What was the experience like? Have each child pretend that they are in charge of meals for the week and plan a grocery list. What do they need to do in order to get food for healthful meals? Feel free to use the shopping list handout included in this lesson. Come back together as a group and discuss the lists.

Grocery Tour: (Adults) Take a field trip to the grocery store. Discuss the layout of the store and how to find foods that match MyPlate’s advice. Spend some time on Nutrition Facts labels, demonstrating how to evaluate sodium content, added sugars, saturated fat ratios, etc. Offer participants a chance to get groceries, and discuss what they found. Why did they pick what they picked?

MyPlate Shopping Display:

A display can help flesh out this lesson. Consider some of the following ideas…

Interactive Display: Put up a large, blank MyPlate image inside a picture of a shopping cart. Have adults write down healthful foods that would fit in each group. Kids can also draw pictures of those foods.

Shopping Tips: Center a picture of MyPlate on your board, then surround it with word bubbles full of shopping tips that will make grocery trips easier and result in more healthful purchases.

Shopping List Samples: Write out a list of healthful foods, dividing them into MyPlate categories. This can serve as shopping inspiration.

This post is excerpted from the MyPlate Workbook. If you like what you see, don’t miss this free printable leader guide!

MyPlate Shopping Leader Guide

We’re here to help you look your very best right now, so here are some other amazing MyPlate resources from the Nutrition Education Store

Help Kids Eat More Vegetables

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “9 in 10 children didn’t eat enough vegetables in 2007-2010.”

Salad Kit for KidsThat is one sad statistic.

After all, eating a wide variety of vegetables is critical to good health. Take MyPlate’s advice, for example. “People who eat more fruits and vegetables as part of an overall healthy diet are likely to have a reduced risk of some chronic diseases.” Plus, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans counsel people to “Increase vegetable and fruit intake” and “Eat a variety of vegetables.”

Getting enough vegetables is especially important for children. The CDC asserts “Healthy eating in childhood and adolescence is important for proper growth and development and can prevent health problems such as obesity, dental caries, iron deficiency, and osteoporosis.”

It’s time to turn things around and help kids get the vegetables they need.

Shopping Kit for KidsThat’s why we’ve recently added two new interactive resources to the Nutrition Education Store. These felt shopping and salad kits offer new ways for kids to engage with fruits and vegetables, encouraging healthful habits and a balanced diet.  Plus, research indicates that kids who play a role in choosing the healthful ingredients for a meal are more likely to eat it. Getting familiar with salad is one way to help increase fruit and vegetable intake among children. Shopping for food together is another.

But that’s not all! Today we’re offering a sneak peek into ways to help kids eat more vegetables. Check out the handouts below — you can get a free leader guide for fruit and vegetable activities for kids in kindergarten through 3rd grade, and then follow up with a free activity page for kids at the same age level. Check out the previews below, and if you like what you see, get your own salad or shopping kits today!

Salad Activity Ideas:

Activity #1 — Salad Taste Test: Fill a bowl with lettuce leaves and pass it around. Have each child taste a piece of lettuce and describe it. Repeat the taste test with other salad ingredients, then use the felt to show ways the ingredients can be combined into yummy salads. If you have the time and budget, offer real salad ingredients for kids to mix and match. Let them eat their creations.

Activity #2 — Fun Facts: Divide the kids into groups and give each a different felt ingredient. With younger kids, have each group think of something that makes that ingredient special. With older kids, have them research the health impact of that ingredient. Have each group present their findings and put their piece in the tray. At the end, present the tray to the kids — look at the great salad they can make together!

Salad Worksheet:

Salad Worksheet

If you like what you see, get the handouts for free! Here are PDF copies of the leader guide and activity page, just for you!

Salad Leader Guide

Salad WorksheetPS These would be perfect for National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month, which is coming right up!

And here are more fruit and vegetable resources from the Nutrition Education Store. Remember, we’re here to help you look your very best…

Fruit and Vegetable Poster Set

Fruit and Vegetable Balloon Set

Color Your World with Food Banner