Nutrition Education
for Kids

I'm a dietitian. Following is a list of my favorite nutrition education for kids materials:

How to Teach Nutrition to Kids by dietitian Connie Evers is packed with nutrition activities and ideas that teach kids how to evaluate nutrition information, make smart food choices, and creatively prepare food. (Lessons "grown-ups" could benefit from too!)

Step-by-step instructions are given for over 200 hands on nutrition activities for kids featuring the MyPyramid Food Guide, children's books, gardening, recipes, food art, label reading, fitness and more.

Aimed at children ages 6-12.

Here's the Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Making the Case for a New Nutrition Culture
Chapter 2: The Message of Healthful Eating
Chapter 3: The F.I.B. Approach to Nutrition Education
Chapter 4: Teaching the Basics of Healthful Eating (MyPyramid & more!)
Chapter 5: Language Arts
Chapter 6: Math
Chapter 7: Science
Chapter 8: Social Studies
Chapter 9: Performing Arts
Chapter 10: Edible Art
Chapter 11: Physical Education
Chapter 12: The Cafeteria as Nutrition Laboratory
Appendix A: Guidelines for Safe Classroom Cooking
Appendix B: Selected Resources
Bibliography
Index

I was recently called to volunteer my time to teach a class for a group of kids and I have to admit I panicked! I've been teaching nutrition to adults for 17 years. I didn't know how to teach kids nutrition and I owned zero teaching materials on nutrition education for kids!
Thankfully I found this book, How to Teach Nutrition to Kids, and my problem quickly changed from "what/how am I going to teach this class" to "how can I pick just one nutrition activity to teach?! I wanted to use all the ideas!! The entire experience resulted in me wanting to teach nutrition for kids more often!!

Nutrition Fun with Brocc and Roll: More great nutrition education material for kids from dietitian Connie Evers. If you're in need of copy ready nutrition educational materials, this resource is for you!

This hands-on activity guide provides 42 copy ready nutrition education worksheets that include very creative activities and recipes for teaching kids about nutrition and healthy living. Parents and teachers who provide nutrition education for kids will equally love the "spokesfoods:"

Brocc (broccoli)
Roll (a whole grain)
Hugh-man Bean (a kidney bean)
Pear

The suggested grade level is available at the bottom of each page and spans throughout all of elementary school.

See the table of contents here.

Yummy Designs: Makes Nutrition Fun! For over 20 years, Yummy Designs has developed and marketed innovative and fun materials aimed at nutrition education for kids. Nutrition education activities include:

puppets and puppet show scripts
card decks
nutrition games for kids
food coloring books
nutrition activity books with TONS of fun and creative ideas
nutrition lesson books that include copy ready kids nutrition worksheets

They also sell too-cute-for-words mylar fruit and vegetable balloons. They're so cute in fact, I personally developed an "eat your fruit and vegetable contest" for a cardiac rehab program I worked with, just because I wanted to get the balloons!

These fruit and vegetable balloons could be used in conjunction with one of the nutrition activities for kids I developed called Color Your World too!

Yummy Design products include materials aimed at nutrition education for children in the following areas:

Food Guide Pyramid
5 A Day
Fast Foods
Healthy Eating
Good Nutrition

I think you'll agree they make nutrition fun!

Nourish Interactive: This is a completely FREE website that provides nutrition educators a long list of tools to assist in teaching the key elements of nutrition to children. (And the site can be viewed in either English OR Spanish!)

It definitely tops my list of favorite nutrition websites for kids.

Nutrition education for kids includes:

Nutrition lesson plans arranged by grade level
Tons of FREE printable nutrition worksheets for kids including:
- Nutrition education worksheets sheets to help children learn about the food pyramid, healthy eating and daily fitness.
- Free food coloring pages that promote fruits and vegetables.
- Worksheets on nutrition and the food groups.
- Food trackers.
- Kids nutrition worksheets to help build vocabulary and promote healthy food facts.
- Food label nutritional worksheets.
- Nutrition agreements and goal tracking sheets.
- Certificates of completion for your child to proudly show.
Kids nutrition dictionary
Fun educational games