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Nutrition Theme

 When we have our nutrition theme, there are many fun activities that I tie in. We create food with playdough in our Fine Motor/Sensory Center.
 I write numerals on paper plates and give each student a handful of pom poms. When I call a number, they cover it with a pom pom on their plate. We play until every plate is covered ith "berries."
 The students find and cut out pictures of food in magazines and then we sort the pictures. They can be sorted healthy vs. unhealthy or they can be sorted by color, by likes vs. dislikes, or by food group.
 In the Art Center, I lay out blue paint and clothespins attached to a cotton ball. Students dab "blueberries" around their paper. In the Science Center, students take a basket of play or felt food and sort it onto an oversized food group plate.
The Dramatic Play Center and Block Center can both be used to create restaurants or grocery stores. The Math Center has a sorting pie where the students sort fruits by color and/or kind.
The Writing Center can be used to create menus or shopping lists for the Dramatic Play Center or Block Center. Another activity includes shape pizza. Every child is given a paper pizza and then they glue several different shapes on their pizza. Finally they count and write how many shapes are on their pizza.This theme also lends itself to ice cream matching and counting games. Matching the lowercase letter on the cone to the uppercase letter on the scoop. Or placing how ever many scoops onto a cone to match the numeral there. Graphs can be made of students' favorite pizza toppings, fruits, vegetables or any other food you choose.
Some books that I include in the Reading Center or read during circle time include:
*"Blueberries for Sal"
*"Eating the Alphabet"
*"Growing Vegetable Soup"
*"Lunch"
*"It Looked Like Spilt Milk"

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