The Five Food Groups

Lesson 1: Meet the Five Food Group Friends

This lesson helps you learn about foods. You will learn how to sort foods into groups. This is called classifying — it means putting things that are alike into the same group. You will learn that eating from all five food groups helps keep you healthy. You will play games, act things out, pretend to shop for groceries, and even become part of a food group yourself!

What You Will Learn

• The names of the five MyPlate food groups, and foods that belong in each one.
• Why it is important to eat foods from all five groups.
• How to wash your hands the right way, and why it matters before and after making food or eating.

Big Questions

• What are the names of the five food groups?
• Which foods belong in each group?

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Things You Will Use

• A poster called The Five Food Groups
• A song called "Reach for the Sky"
• Food Cards (pictures of foods)
• A recipe called "Friendship Pocket"
• Easy readers about fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, dairy, and where food comes from
• Cards showing the Food Group Friends
• A workbook
• A STAR Chart
• A paper for parents about school lunch

You might also use books, a school food menu, crayons, scissors, glue, paper, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, cardboard tubes, poster boards, star stickers, and markers.

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Getting Started (20 minutes)

1. Look at the poster called The Five Food Groups. Sit in a circle. Your teacher will show you buttons or other small objects. Watch how they can be sorted by color, size, or shape. Then you get to sort some too!

1. Just like we sort buttons by color or shape, we also sort foods into food groups. Foods in the same group are alike in some way.

1. Learn the names of the five food groups: Fruit, Vegetable, Grains, Protein Foods, and Dairy. Think about your favorite food. Which group does it belong to? Then jump up and shout, "Five Food Group Friends!" How many words did you say? What sound does each word start with? What letter makes that sound? Now say your own name. What sound does it start with? Can you think of a food that starts with the same sound? (Like Britney and broccoli!)

1. Look at the Food Cards spread out on the floor. Pick a food you ate this week. Put your card up on the board.

1. Pick two fruits, like an apple and an orange. What food group do they belong to? Fruits come from plants. They can be many colors. They often taste sweet. We eat them as snacks or even dessert. Fruits help our bodies stay healthy and grow.

Try this for fun! Smile and point to your teeth and gums. Some fruits help heal cuts and scratches. They also help keep your teeth and gums healthy!

1. Now let's talk about other food groups.

• What group do broccoli and sweet potatoes belong to? Vegetables! Vegetables come in many colors too, like green, orange, and red. Some, like carrots and broccoli, are crunchy to eat raw.

Try this for fun! Make pretend "night-vision goggles" with your hands around your eyes. Find other vegetables on the cards or poster. Some vegetables have something called a vitamin — that's a tiny helper inside food that keeps our body working well. Some vitamins help heal cuts. Some help our eyes see better, even in the dark!

• What group do chicken and peanut butter belong to? Protein Foods! These foods all have something called protein, which helps build strong muscles. Muscles help our body move. Some protein foods come from animals, like fish, beef (from cows), and ham (from pigs). Others come from plants, like beans, seeds, tofu, and nuts.

Try this for fun! Take a deep breath. Blink your eyes. Smile. Snap your fingers. Tap your toes. March in place. All of these movements — big or small — need muscles!

• What group do milk and yogurt belong to? Dairy! Most dairy foods are made from milk, like cheese and yogurt. Milk usually comes from cows, but it can also come from sheep and goats. Some soy milk counts as dairy too. Dairy foods help make our bones and teeth strong. Our bones make up our skeleton, which helps us stand up and protects our brain, lungs, and heart.

Try this for fun! Sing the "Dry Bones" song. Start at your toes and sing up to your head, like: "The toe bone's connected to the foot bone..."

• What group do bread and rice belong to? Grains! Grains come from plants like rice, wheat, and oats. Wheat can be turned into flour, which makes bread, tortillas, crackers, and noodles. Grains give our body energy — the power we need to move and play.

Try this for fun! Feel your pulse by pressing two fingers on your wrist. Your pulse shows how fast your heart beats. Now do 10 jumping jacks and check again. Is it faster? That's because your body uses more energy to jump than to sit still. The more you move, the more energy your body needs from food!

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"Sometimes" Foods

Some foods, like candy, soda, and butter, don't belong to any food group. They have extra sugar or fat but not much of what our body needs. Other foods, like cookies and ice cream, do belong to a group (Grains and Dairy), but they aren't the healthiest choice because they have a lot of sugar or fat. We call all of these "sometimes foods" because we should only eat them once in a while.

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1. Meet the Food Group Friends: Farrah Fruit, Reggie Veggie, Jane Grain, Dean Protein, and Mary Dairy! Each friend is made up of foods from one food group.

1. Look at each Food Group Friend closely:
2. Farrah Fruit — apple, blackberries, bananas, watermelon, strawberry, kiwi, grapes, orange, cherries
3. Reggie Veggie — carrot, broccoli, snap peas, spinach, beans
4. Jane Grain — whole-wheat bread, whole-grain pasta, whole-grain cereal, brown rice, popcorn, graham crackers
5. Dean Protein — chicken, ham, egg, beans, peanuts
6. Mary Dairy — yogurt, milk, cheese, soy milk

Look at all five friends together. Pick a Food Card and give it to the friend it matches. For example, beans could go to Dean Protein — look at his hair, it's made of beans! Beans are a protein food. But beans could also go to Reggie Veggie — look at his nose, it's a bean too! That's because beans belong to both the Protein Foods group and the Vegetable group.