Activity planner– Early Years

This activity planner contains a list of activity ideas and links to resources to help you plan your Healthy Eating Week. The activity ideas have been organised under the Week’s three themes: food provenance, creative cooking and eating and drinking well. The activity ideas also support the Week’s five health challenges:

  • Have a healthy breakfast;
  • Have 5 A DAY;
  • Drink plenty;
  • Get active;
  • Try something new.

Food provenance

Nursery
Explore where different foods come from; focus on foods that come from plants. Ask the children to name a variety of plant foods and where on the plant they come from.
Where does food come from?
Does this food come from a plant or animal?
Make a perfect plant salad. This involves the children investigating where different plant foods come from and using cutting and grating skills to make a crunchy vegetable salad.
Show the children a range of foods from different sources including animal and plant and ask them where they come from. For example, carrots, apples, herbs, cabbage, leeks, berries, canned fish, cheese and canned meat.
Alternatively use the food cards, separate the image from the source. Question the children about where the food is grown or which part of the plant/animal is eaten.
Ask the children what foods can be eaten at breakfast time. Explore where these foods come from, for example cereals, bread are from plants, milk and yogurt are from animals sources. Use the Breakfast images to help.
How many children include fruit in their breakfast? What ideas do they have to add a portion fruit? Remind the children about the 5 A Day message. You could use the 5 A Day cards to help.
Make a Super Smoothie with the children. Talk about the different fruits they could use and where they are grown.
Explore where the other ingredients come from. Why does this make a healthy breakfast drink? Why is it important to have 6-8 drinks a day?
Involve the children in a growing activity. There are a variety of plant foods that could be grown in or outside the classroom, e.g. tomatoes, potatoes, cress.
Grow a variety of herbs in pots or outside and use them to make a tasty salad. Talk to the children about the conditions needed for plants to grow.
Use a variety of vegetables and fruit to make a selection of dips and dippers. Talk to the children about the origin of the vegetables and fruit. Do they know any that are grown locally?
When making the dip you could use the herbs that you have grown, for example, chopped parsley, snipped chives or torn basil or coriander.
Show the children pictures of the four seasons and ask the children what they associate with each season. For example, snow in winter, daffodils in spring.
Show the children the season cards and talk about the months that are in each season. What foods do they associate with the season?
Check fruit and vegetable seasonality, as well as download fantastic photographs, here.
Make a seasonal salad or soup with the children using a range of fresh fruit and vegetables. Talk to the children about other produce that is available in season.
Explore where different types of fruit are grown and where they come from. Show the children a range of fruit or some picture cards and ask them if they can name it. Do they know where on the plant they come from?
Do all the different fruits grow in the UK? Why will some fruits only grow in other countries?
Interested in visiting a farm or knowing more about farming? If so, the following sites will help: and
Make a Fabulous fruit salad using a range of different fruit.
Talk about the different colours and shapes of the fruit. What do they look like? What do they smell like? What do they taste like?
Explore with the children where we can obtain or purchase food, for example, a supermarket, market, butcher, farm shop, garden/allotment. You can use the Different shops sheets. Talk about what the different shops are called, e.g. butchers, and ask them to name some of the foods they can see. Get them to match the food cards to the shop.
Have any of the children been on an allotment or in a vegetable garden – what did they see? What did the plants need to grow?
Talk about where meat, fish, eggs and beans come from using these resources:
Does this food come from a plant or animal?
Focus on fish – do the children know the names of any fish? Find out how many children have tried different fish dishes. Show them the Fish dish cards and see if they can come up with any others.
Play the fish dish game to consolidate their learning.
Make a Splendid seaside salad or Terrific tuna tarts with the children.
Encourage some children to try a new food by tasting a small sample.
Use the interactive activity Where does food come from? to match food to their origins.
Talk to the children about foods they have eaten that come from other countries. Show the children some examples of different dishes. Look at a world map and plot where some of the popular dishes come from.
Show the children how to make a Picturesque pizza and talk about the different ingredients used and where they come from. The children can prepare and assemble their own pizza using a range of different ingredients.

Creative cooking

Nursery
Use Cooking activity 5 to get children ready to cook. It involves trying and tasting different foods. Use these resources to support the activity.
My food book
Certificate 1
Certificate 2
Permission letter
To prepare the children for cooking use the resources to talk to them about personal and food hygiene.
Getting ready to cook
Get ready to cook checklist
Getting ready to cook display cards
Activity 6 notes
Invite a volunteer to the front of the class and discuss with the children what he/she needs to do before they cook. Talk about why these actions are important.
Play the Get ready to cook game. Each child will need a copy of the Get ready to cook tick list.
This cooking activity looks at the different types of kitchen equipment. It involves a kitchen equipment jigsaw and making Perky punch using various pieces of kitchen equipment.
The following resources support this activity:
Kitchen equipment jigsaw
Kitchen equipment cards
Perky punch recipe
Perky punch step-by-step
Cooking activity 8 involves the children making a simple dish using basic skills, learning vocabulary related to the task and thinking about what is happening to the ingredients.
Explain to the children what they will be cooking and ask them what they need to do before they start.
Work with the children to prepare the recipe in groups of four; question them about the changes that have taken place. These resources can be used to support the activity.
Setting up a cooking session guide
Activity 8 notes
Recipes
Display the Getting ready to cook display cards to help the children remember what they need to do before they cook. Talk through each of the steps and how the children would do these.
Use the following interactive activities:
Let’s get ready to cook
Let’s cook
Use the Let’s cook interactive activity to help children learn about different kitchen equipment.
The Tasty toast activity reinforces the importance of eating breakfast. Explore different options for toast toppings with the children. Encourage them to be creative and try to include a variety of different ingredients.
When the children have made their tasty toast it can be eaten, question the children:
Who has eaten this before?
What is the topping called?
What does it taste like?
Encourage them to use their senses and descriptive words to describe the tastes, e.g. cool, smooth.
Get creative making a Splendid sandwich with the children. This activity reinforces food origin work and encourages the children to choose and combine different ingredients to make a chicken wrap.
Use the resources to explore where animal foods come from.
Prepare the children to cook, display the ingredients they will be using and talk about where they come from. Ask the children to select the ingredients they are going to use to make their wrap or other sandwich. Encourage the children to taste the wrap.
Royal rice a simple recipe using pre-cooked rice to make a colourful rice salad. Explore the opportunity to use a variety of ingredients with the children.
Display the ingredients and talk about how they will be prepared. Ask the children what colours they can see and why they think it is important that a food looks attractive. What other ingredients could be used to make the salad e.g. cooked pasta instead of rice, grated carrot, tomatoes, cucumber?
Make a Bagel bruschetta as a class snack. The children can try different types of bread, e.g. bagel, slices of ciabatta or baguette, bread rolls to make the bruschetta.
Create a Great green soup with the children.
Discuss the vegetables that are being used - what is this called? What shape is it?
What does it feel like? (Allow some of the children to touch the vegetable being shown.) What does this taste like? How can it be prepared?
Group the children to make the soup so that a variety of ingredients are used. Explain that in this session we are looking at green vegetables, but to be healthy we need to eat a rainbow of different colour vegetables. Remind the children about the 5 a day message.
Allow the children to taste the soup, ask them about the taste and texture of the soup.
Pleasing pasta encourages the children to think about the different types of pasta available and that they can be used to make many different meals.
Show the children lots of different pasta in different forms. Talk about similarities and differences. Show the children the pasta meal cards and talk about the different meals that can be made using pasta. How many have they tried?
Make a Pleasing pasta salad with the children, talk about the variety of ingredients that could be used.
Display the Let’s get ready to cook poster to remind children of what they need to do to get ready to cook.

Eating and drinking well

Nursery
Use the Healthy eating Activity 2 to play the eatwell game and teach about different foods found in each food group. The following resources support this activity:
Activity 2 Notes
The eatwell plate poster
Food image cards
The eatwell board game
The eatwell game food cards
Use the Healthy eating Activity 3 to complete the Eatwell plate jigsaw.
There are 3 ideas to use with the jigsaw activity.
Use the Let’s eat well and stay healthy PowerPoint presentationto talk about the variety of foods the children need to eat to stay healthy.
Ask the questions in the presentation and discuss the foods in each group.
Food group interactive activity – use the activity with the children to help them learn more about the main food groups.
The 5 A Day resources help the children to understand what counts and portion size.
Explore the 5 A Day message with the children, explain that we need different types of fruit and vegetables and we that we need 5 portions a day. Ask the children when they think we could eat fruit and vegetables? Encourage them to think about breakfast and snacks as well as main meals.
Play Fruit and vegetable bingo with the children.
Explain to the children that they will taste different fruit for a Fabulous fruit salad.
Have a variety of fruit available to show the children. Examine some examples and encourage the children to use their senses to explain what the fruit looks like, smells like, tastes like. Ask them what they expect the inside to look like; will there be seeds, a stone? Try to show them some unusual types such as a pomegranate or kiwi fruit. What are their favourite fruits and why?
Make a Fabulous fruit salad.
Talk to the children about when the fruit salad may be eaten, for example at breakfast time or as a dessert. Remind them about eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Ask them how many portions they ate yesterday/today.
Talk to the children about the importance of drinking regularly. Do they know how much they should drink every day?
Super smoothie– use this session to talk about the different types of drinks the children might have. Why is it important not to drink sweet sugary drinks too often?
You could try using a variety of different fruits (including canned in juice or frozen) and then asking the children to taste the different smoothies. Get them to describe the smoothie – colour, taste, texture. Which one do they prefer and why?
No blender? Try layering different types of yogurt and fruit together to create a stripy breakfast dish. Use a clear plastic cup so the layering can be seen.
Show the children The eatwell plate and ask them which foods they can see in the yellow section (Bread, rice, potatoes and pasta).
Talk about when these foods might be eaten, e.g. breakfast cereals, a sandwich for lunch, and potatoes for dinner.
Using Activity 4 extension play the fish dish game, while looking at the importance of basing your meals around starchy foods and eating more fish.
Show the Fish dish cards (fish meals). Explain that the dishes are all meals containing fish. Look at each meal and ask the children to identify the fish, starchy food (from the Bread, rice, potatoes and pasta group) and fruit or vegetables (to help towards their 5 A DAY).
Make Marvellous mackerel pate with the children and serve with toasted granary triangles.
Ask them to identify which food group each of the ingredients comes from. What could they serve with it to make a tasty snack?
Show the children the food images or a range of ingredients and ask them to pick out those foods which fit into the Milk and dairy food group.
Ask them if they remember what size group this is (Eatwell plate poster). Should we eat lots, some or a little of the foods from this group? Ask the children what foods they have eaten from this group. What can they think of that are made from these foods, e.g. cheese on toast, rice pudding, macaroni cheese.
Use these resources to do a cheese or milk tasting activity with the children (gain permission and check for allergies).
Look at samples of different cheeses; ask the children to talk about the different colours and textures they can see. What is their favourite cheese (or milk).
Make some Morish muffins with the children!
Explore the ingredients used and talk about the different types of cheese that could be used in the recipe.
Use the Healthy Eating around the clock poster to talk to the children about different meal occasions.
What time of the day do they eat breakfast, lunch and supper?
Discuss the types of food and drinks they have at different times of the day.
What food and drinks can they see on the poster? Which are their favourite?
Try these interactive activities.
What can you see?
How much?
Use the Healthy Eating Week target tracker posterto make sure children are doing at least 60 minutes of activity each day!

BNF Healthy Eating Week 2015 has been developed by the British Nutrition Foundation and is supported by the Agriculture Horticulture Development Board (DairyCo), Danone, the Garfield Weston Foundation, KP Snacks, the National Farmers Union, Seafish, ABF and Capespan.