Nutrition Project

To meet the nutritional needs of the children in care, teachers must be prepared to plan healthy menus that children will enjoy and eat. The Nutrition Project will give you the opportunity to plan nutritious, healthy meals, share nutrition information with parents and reflect on the connection of meals in the childcare/preschool setting to the child's attitudes, behaviors and belief about nutrition and the child's health and health education.

This project will include:

1) Part 1: Develop a Nutrition Newsletter Page/Posterfor Parents on MyPlate

2) Part 2: Developa nutritious, healthy,3-DayMenu plan based on the guidelines and resources set forth in these directions

3) Part 3: Questions for Reflectionwill examinespecial considerations in menu planning and the connection of designing and developing nutritious, healthy meals to the child's health and health education.

Part One: Nutrition Newsletter Page for Parents

Nutrition education for children and their parents is one of the most powerful tools that teachers have to promote and protect the health and well-being of children. A page dedicated to nutrition in the weekly or monthly newsletter to parents, is an effective way to inform and educate parents about nutrition.

For Part OneYou will pretend you work at a preschool with a monthly newsletter to parents that devotes one page to nutrition educating parents on Nutrition and Healthy Eating for Preschoolers.

You will write and design the nutrition page for the first newsletter of the year with the topic of Healthy Eating for Preschoolers using the MyPlate system.

The design can be paragraphs with graphics, or, like a poster with graphics and bullet points. Be creative and make it appealing to read with graphics. (one page only)

It will be graded on demonstration of your knowledge of nutrition and healthy eating for Preschoolers and the MyPlate system, creativity, college level writing and completeness.

(To implement this at your preschool some topics could be: healthy snacks; how to read nutrition labels and shop for healthy foods; how to engage children in food production (such as gardening) and preparation (i.e. cooking) and serving (family style); recipes; food behaviors; introduction of new foods; food allergies; vegan diets; foods that should be eliminated or strictly limited from the diet and why; foods that should be plentiful in the diet and why; and many more...see text, Foundations, and Framework for ideas.)
Part Two: 3-Day Menu Plan

For Part Two create a 3-day menu that will include breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack for ages 3-5 (CACFP) or 1400 calories (MyPlate) following the Dietary Guidelines, the directions for this project, and using the menu plan format included in these directions.

Established nutritional guidelines help teachers plan for adequate nutrition in menu selection. In planning your 3 daymenu follow the USDA Dietary Guidelines incorporatedin MyPlate and CACFP found in chapters 6 and 9 and on the MyPlate, CACFP and Dietary Guidelines websites.

These guidelines emphasize three main points in regards to menu planning:

• Consume more of certain foods and nutrients such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and seafood

• Consume fewer(to no) foods with added sodium (salt), saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, and refined grains

• Balance calories with physical activity to manage weight.

Attachment:- bb_cd_205_nutrition_project2.rar