Overview

This lesson focuses on helping kids understand the value of the bright colors (rich nutrients) in vegetables.

 

Objectives

• Students will be able to recall the names of vegetables.
• Students will be able to recall that veggies contain phytonutrients that give them bright colors.

 

Materials

• Worksheets with line drawings of a broccoli floret, a carrot, an ear of corn, and a potato
• Crayons, markers or color pencils

Worksheets: Download worksheets. Included with worksheets is a full PDF version of the same lesson plan. (164KB PDF)

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to download the worksheets.

 

Teacher Talking Points

Have you ever wondered why carrots are bright orange or what makes corn yellow? The reason that vegetables are so colorful is because they contain hundreds of substances with strange names like lycopene (lahy-kuh-peen), anthocyanins (an-thuh-sahy-uh-nins), and beta carotene (be-ta--car-o-tene). All together these strange-sounding substances are called phytonutrients and they work together with other nutrients to promote health and prevent disease. Your body likes the bright colors in veggies a lot!

 

Activity

1. Review the talking points with your students and ask them to make a list of all of the vegetables they know. Next, ask them to write the color beside each vegetable. Pronounce the phytonutrients, ask the students to repeat after, and emphasize that our bodies like veggies with bright colors. Then explain that sometimes scientists give plants strange names. You might also use the names of veggies in English or Language Ar ts examples (e.g., nouns, adjectives, or sentence structure).
2. Pass out the Worksheet of line drawings and instruct the students to color the veggies the correct color. Finally, ask each student to create a strange alternative name of the veggie and write it on the blank beside each picture. For example, a student might wish to call broccoli a "green tree for elves" and then draw an elf next to the drawing of broccoli.
3. After encouraging kids to give vegetables creative names, post the drawings somewhere in the classroom where kids can see what others have created. You might want to award students with the most creative descriptions.

 

Resource: http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org