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Jazzy Food and Nutrition Bulletin Board Ideas

Division of Nutrition Assistance

Good Nutrition Counts

Directions for Design
The "Count" points out the correct number of servings from the Food Guide Pyramid. The numbers and food groups are detachable, making the display useful as an evaluation.

Suggested Materials

An illustration of Dracula or a Halloween mask/costume
Black material or crepe paper for cape
Construction paper for letters and numbers

Learning Activities

1. Review the Food Guide Pyramid.
Discuss with the students that the Pyramid outlines what foods to eat each day. Rather than a rigid list of rules, it provides a general guide, allowing each student to choose his/her own healthful diet. The Pyramid emphasizes foods from the five major food groups. Each of these food groups provides some, but not all, of the nutrients the body needs. Foods in one group cannot replace those in another. No one food is more important than another is. For good health, all are necessary. Identify foods that belong to each group by using pictures of foods.

2. Discuss the number of daily servings needed.
After identifying foods that belong to the different groups, discuss the number of servings needed each day. (6-11 for the Breads, Cereals, Rice, and Pasta Group; 3-5 for the Vegetable Group; 2-4 for the Fruit Group; 2-3 for the Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese Group; and 2-3 for the Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs and Nuts Group.) Explain to the students that the range of servings of each food group in the Pyramid offers lots of flexibility. The amount needed by each student will depend on age, sex, body size, and activity level. Everyone should have at least the lowest number of servings in the ranges. Young children may not need so much food as older family members, but they need the same variety of food, so they may eat smaller servings.

Remove the numbers from the bulletin board and let the students take turns putting the numbers by the right food group. Switch the food groups around occasionally so the students will learn to identify the servings with a group rather than just learning the order on the bulletin board.

3. Utilize counting activities.
Choose one or more of the following counting activities to conduct with the students:

Count the seeds in an apple.
Count the sections of an orange.
Count the number of dried beans or peas in ¼ or ½ cup.
Read the Nutrition Facts label on a bag of potato chips or other favorite snack food. How many servings are contained in the bag? Do the students normally eat the whole bag even if the bag contains more than one serving? Help the students understand that foods are often packaged with more than one serving per container. Emphasize that they must carefully read the label to determine exactly how many calories and nutrients they are actually eating.
Compare the number of servings of peas or green beans contained in a school foodservice can (#10 can) to the number of servings in a can from home. What is the difference in the number of servings?

For more bulletin board ideas:
Page 1 ~ Page 2 ~ Page 3
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