In health, students have been learning about how to balance meals with all the foods groups as well as all the required nutrients needed to ensure that our bodies are healthy. Because of our Nutrition Program, we were able to amp up learning and take a hands -on learning approach. The first part of this lesson connects to the Adopt a Dairy Calf program that we have been participating in. We have been following the journey of our calf, Lily. Because Lily is a Holstein and her primary job is to produce milk, we will be making yogurt from scratch. This process takes a whole 24 hours to do. We will enjoy our yogurt with honey, fruit and granola the following day. 

The next part of this learning journey is to cook a collaborative meal. Student discussed healthy breakfast options and decided on making bacon and sausage, pancakes, fruit salad served with orange juice. Students were put into groups and each helped to make a portion of the meal. We then enjoyed our breakfast at lunch time!

I stumbled across some valuable resources from Teach Nutrition which will supplement and enhance learning in this area. 

Synopsis: This lesson is an observational science experiment where we took a project that we started in September and are expanding on over the next month. In September, students built a vermicompost bin with red wiggler worms. We learned about how the red wigglers do their jobs and have been caring for their needs. We brought in worms into the classroom to watch them eat 3 types of food: apple, banana, and bread. We want to see what food the worm enjoys best based on how fast the item disappears. This lesson ties nicely to our charter and the grade 3 Earth Systems unit. Later, I will have the students create a poster to display their learning in a creative and visual way. We wrote 'opinion' paragraphs as a tie to language arts detailing their hypotheses on what will happen. This lesson also will have connections to the Soil My Undies experiment where we can use the same vocabulary words and understandings to gain a deeper appreciation of the importance of maintaining healthy soil. Now we will wait and see what comes! 

Update: Due to the circumstances (time of year) the container we were using was not efficient enough to keep the worms warm over the winter. We will reevaluate this project in the spring!