The Five Food Groups

Lesson 1: Meet the Five Food Group Friends

This first lesson focuses on identifying different foods, sorting them into food groups, and understanding why eating from all five food groups keeps us healthy. Students will meet the "Food Group Friends" through hands-on activities—including dramatic play, a pretend grocery checkout, and even acting out a food group themselves—as they learn to classify foods.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Name the five MyPlate food groups and identify foods that belong in each one.
• Explain why it's important to eat foods from all five groups.
• Demonstrate proper handwashing and explain why washing hands before and after preparing or eating food matters.

Essential Questions

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

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Supplies and Preparation

Discover MyPlate Materials (order or download at TeamNutrition.USDA.gov):

• The Five Food Groups poster
• "Reach for the Sky" song
• Food Cards
• Friendship Pocket Look and Cook Recipe (one copy per student, plus a display copy; teacher instructions and supply list on pp. 77–79)
• Emergent readers on Fruits, Vegetables, Grains, Protein Foods, Dairy, and Where Food Comes From (teacher and student versions)
• Food Group Friends Profile Cards
• Student Workbook (Activities 1–5, pp. 5–9, 11, 12)
• STAR Chart
• Parent handout: Welcome to School Lunch!

Additional Supplies:

• Suggested Book Club titles (mentioning these books is not an official endorsement over other similar materials):
• Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
• I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
• Delicious! A Pumpkin Soup Story by Helen Cooper
• School food menu
• Crayons, scissors, glue, construction paper, paper plates, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, cardboard tubes from paper towel rolls, large poster boards (if available), star stickers, markers

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Whole Group Activities

The activities below help students meet the lesson's objectives. Feel free to use them in whatever order fits your class schedule.

Warm-Up (20 minutes)

1. Display the Five Food Groups poster where everyone can see it. Gather students in a circle on the floor. Place two hoops or a sorting mat in the center, then dump a large container of buttons (or a similar small object) in front of the group. Show students how to sort the objects into the hoops by a shared trait—color, size, or shape. Let students spend a few minutes sorting the rest. Together, record the sorted groups in the Activity Area of the poster. Have students put the objects away and return to their seats.

1. Explain that just as we sort objects by color, shape, or size, we also sort foods into groups. Foods in the same group share something in common.

1. Using the poster as a reference, introduce the five food groups: Fruit, Vegetable, Grains, Protein Foods, and Dairy. Ask students which group(s) their favorite foods or meals belong to, and record a class tally in the Activity Area. Ask: Why do you think your favorite foods belong in those groups? Have students jump as they say, "Five Food Group Friends," then ask how many words they said. Next, have them say "Five Food Friends" and identify the first sound in each word, along with the matching letter. Then have them say their own name and identify its first sound. Can they think of a food that starts with the same sound? (For example: Britney—broccoli.)

1. Spread the Food Cards out in the center of the circle. Ask students to name a food they ate that week and find its matching card. Tape the cards to the board or a flip chart.

1. Choose two Fruit Group foods students selected—say, an apple and an orange—and ask: You named an apple and an orange. What food group do they belong to? Explain that fruits grow on plants and come in many colors. They're often sweet and eaten as snacks or dessert. Fruits help our bodies stay healthy and grow. Ask students to name other fruits mentioned earlier, and fill in any that were missed. (See the Five Food Groups handout in Appendix C, pp. 103–105, or at fns.usda.gov/tn/discover-myplate-nutrition-education-kindergarten, for a full list of foods in each group.)

Try this for fun! Have students smile and point to their teeth and gums. Explain that some fruits help heal cuts and scratches and keep teeth and gums healthy.

1. Continue asking students which food groups their cards belong to:

• Ask: What food group do broccoli and sweet potatoes belong to? (Vegetable) Like fruits, vegetables come in many colors—green, orange, red, and more. Some, like carrots and broccoli, are fun to crunch raw. Ask: Who likes carrots, jicama, or cherry tomatoes with low-fat ranch dip as a snack?

Try this for fun! Have students form "night-vision goggles" with their hands and spot other vegetables on the Food Cards or poster. List them in the Activity Area. Remind students that, like fruits, some vegetables provide vitamins (nutrients our bodies need) that help heal cuts and scratches. Others contain a vitamin that supports healthy eyes and skin—and even helps us see better in the dark!

• Ask: What food group do chicken and peanut butter belong to? (Protein Foods) All foods in this group contain protein. Some come from animals—fish comes from fish, beef from cows, ham from pigs. Others come from plants, like beans, sunflower seeds, veggie burgers, tofu, and nuts. Share other protein foods students named. Protein foods help build strong muscles, which let our bodies move.

Try this for fun! Have students move different body parts—take a deep breath, blink, smile, snap their fingers, tap their toes, march in place, or flex their biceps. Point out that every movement, big or small, requires muscles.

• Ask: What food group do milk and yogurt belong to? (Dairy) Most dairy foods, like cheese and yogurt, are made from milk—usually from cows, though sheep and goats provide milk too. Some fortified soy beverages (soy milk) also count as Dairy. Dairy foods help build strong bones and teeth. Our skeleton—the framework of bones inside our body—helps us stand and protects our brain, lungs, heart, and other organs.

Try this for fun! Sing the "Dry Bones" song (based on Dem Bones by Bob Barner), starting at the toes and working up the body: "The toe bone's connected to the foot bone; the foot bone's connected to the leg bone..." Have students point to each bone as you sing.

• Ask: What food group do bread and rice belong to? (Grains) Grains come from plants like rice, wheat, and oats. Wheat and other grains are often ground into flour and used to make bread, tortillas, crackers, and noodles. Grains give our bodies the energy we need to move and play.

Try this for fun! Have students find their pulse by pressing two fingers gently on the inside of their wrist. Explain that the pulse measures how fast the heart beats. Then have them do 10 jumping jacks and check their pulse again. Ask what they notice—is it faster? Explain that the heart beats faster because the body needs more energy to move than to sit still. The more active you are, the more energy your body needs from food.

A Note on "Sometimes" Foods: Some foods don't belong to any of the five groups—candy, jelly, cream cheese, soda, butter, sugar, honey, and fruit punch, for example. These contain extra sugar or saturated fat but lack what our bodies need to stay healthy. Other foods, like cookies and ice cream, do belong to a food group (Grains and Dairy, respectively) but are less healthy choices because they're high in saturated fat and/or added sugar. All of these are called "sometimes foods" because we should eat them only once in a while.

• Ask students: We've talked about ways different foods help us stay healthy. What are some of them? (Building strong bones and teeth, building strong muscles, providing energy to move and play, healing cuts and scratches.) Point to Nate and Kate on the poster. Explain that throughout Discover MyPlate, Nate and Kate will remind students to choose healthy foods whenever possible—they eat from all five food groups so they can be their best! Reinforce that different foods give our bodies different things we need to stay healthy.

1. Use the Food Group Friends Profile Cards to introduce Farrah Fruit, Reggie Veggie, Jane Grain, Dean Protein, and Mary Dairy.

1. Show each Food Group Friend and explain how their "body" is built from foods in one particular group. Use them as memory tools for matching foods to groups:

• Farrah Fruit — apple, blackberries, bananas, watermelon, strawberry, kiwi, grapes, orange, cherries
• Reggie Veggie — carrot, broccoli, snap peas, spinach, beans
• Jane Grain — whole-wheat bread, whole-grain pasta (spaghetti and bow-tie), whole-grain cereal, brown rice, popcorn, graham crackers
• Dean Protein — chicken, ham, egg, beans, peanuts
• Mary Dairy — yogurt, milk, cheese, fortified soy alternatives (like soy yogurt and soy milk)

Display all five Profile Cards on the board or flip chart. Give each student a Food Card and invite them, one at a time, to "hand" their card to the Food Group Friend built from the same type of food. Then review each card as a class. For example: beans could go to Dean Protein, since his hair is made of beans, and beans belong to the Protein Foods Group. But beans could also go to Reggie Veggie, since his nose is a bean—showing that beans actually belong to both the Protein Foods Group and the Vegetable Group!